How come that when you learn a new word it tend to pop up wherever you look? I learnt about "flexicurity" today in class, Derecho Internacional del Trabajo, and now when I was reading DN, one of Sweden's two biggest daily newspapers, the first article I read was on how our new Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfelt is in Lahti for the ongoing EU Heads of State or Government meeting. And what is the theme for the meeting? Well flexicurity of course! How Europe is going to be able to handle the globalization and the tougher competition, combining more flexible labour market and continuously strong social security. It is a challenge and of outmost importance since we citizens do not want to give up any of our rights and security no matter how costly they are. In that case it is really in our personal interest that the standard on minimum wages, workers rights and the likes is raised around the world - we can not compete with production in countries where the workers are totally exploited, working 14h/day without any social security. So...hang on...if their wages and working conditions go up the prices of the goods and services we buy get more expensive...oh, so globalization, international competition, the opening up of markets, kind of forces us to raise their wages and working conditions otherwise we won't be able to compete with them it terms of production costs! So do we have to choose btw keeping our wages and social security + higher prices on imported goods OR lowering our wages and social security more to 'their' level but keeping the low prices. I'm sure what the EU Heads of State or Government were discussing was how to get both - that seems to be the way homo sapiens work (is it greediness or smart resource maximising...)

Oh that's all for today...I'm beat...and hungry...and it takes me 1.5h to get "home" to Paracuellos.