Ibane’s ramblings
“The biggest danger, that of losing oneself, can pass off in the world as quietly as if it were nothing; every other loss, an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc is bound to be noticed.” S. KierkegaardArchive for Iberia
European politicians and some ramblings
Here I am, writing in an Iberia’s flight in my way to Madrid. Surprisingly the flight is on time and the flight attendants are not bitter, these two marks are usually distinctive in Iberia. Another fact that supports this, in Iberia Magazine, the CEO has a letter to the passengers apologizing by the mess (I guess he has different templates, since he must be using them so often). So here it is a bit of advice, if you visit Madrid, try to avoid as much as possible Iberia and Telefonica Customer Service. You will thank me. Obviously, if you have masochist tendencies I strongly recommend Telefonica Customer Service, and try for example to change your DSL line to a different address, it is going to be very tasty for you.
My flight is going through Brussels, which means that we are loading our plane with different European politicians and European civil servants. I don’t know how many of those guys are in Brussels, last time I have read that there are like 800 European MPs, plus 25000 staff. Then I was leaning in my seat, looking through the Belgium sky, and the figures start to fly, travel expenses by 800, translators, assistants, laptops, hotels,… and I got dizzy. I guess that with the European Parliament and European Commission we are trying to give an example of inefficiency, waste of resources, useless approach with no benefit for the citizen so it can be shown as a lesson not to be repeated later. Don’t get me wrong, I am in favor of a European Union, and I think that the way to go is to strength it, but with this army of bureaucrats overlapping competences and structures I am not sure if it is the way. Nowadays, we might have up to 4 directives or laws to address the same issue, one from your local government, another from the Regional Government, another from Central Government and the European one. As a tax payer, I get really uneasy when I see these legions of politicians traveling for example to support trade, the case of Spain for example, we have regional governments going to China to strength our commercial relations between Cataluña or Madrid and China, then 2 months later we send another bunch of them (this time we include our King in the trip, for the pictures, I guess) for the same, and finally we send a commission of Spanish European MP and at this point you don’t know any more.
The other day I got the papers to vote in the next European elections, and being honest I don’t feel like voting, I don’t share the current view and I demand more efficient institutions that really represent the interest of the citizens and not a bunch of guys bullshitting in Brussels with the translators, with lorries moving around tons of papers in 37 different languages and all that. European MPs, you need to work harder to get my vote.
By the way, as usual, Iberia lost my luggage…
Ibane's ramblings 