Opinion
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Denmark leading by example
While other industrialised countries are talking up environmental promises ahead of the UN climate change summit in Copenhagen, Denmark is already acting green and leading by example, writes freelance journalist Gwladys Fouché.
2 minutes
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Pay cuts – a shortsighted strategy
With the economic downturn unemployment has become a real threat to Nordic workers. Many are prepared to stretch far to keep their jobs, including taking voluntary pay cuts. But pay cuts do not necessarily solve a business’ problems, and could prove to be a bottomless pool.
2 minutes -
Nordic labour markets: a Brussels point of view
Those looking to learn something from the Nordic labour markets treat them with envy and respect, but also with a degree of scepticism, writes Jørgen Rønnest.
2 minutes -
Working con amore
After fifteen years in Italy, it feels wonderful to be taken on the wings of the Scandinavian labour market. Not under! That’s the whole point.
3 minutes
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Things to do on holiday
“How was your holiday?” they ask me. I think to myself – holiday? What holiday? I’ve worked harder over the past three months at home than during an entire year in the office.
3 minutes -
UK’s Eastern European salvation or damnation
A day trip to Britain’s famous Blackpool seaside resort left me wondering whether I’d taken a wrong turning and ended up in Poland. In every chip shop, every café, every gaming arcade and at every amusement ride I was served by a Marek, an Ewa or a Dariuz.
3 minutes
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Packing your bags is hard to do
Two nights a week, over twenty foreigners like me gather in a classroom at an Oslo language school, determined to improve our faltering Norwegian.
3 minutes -
Tasting the community spirit
A few weeks after moving to Norway, I did something I would never have done anywhere else. At 6pm on the dot, I left my flat to meet my neighbours in the courtyard. We planted flowers, cleaned the grounds, painted the door frames, did the odd repair, and generally made our apartment block a better…
3 minutes -
Book in review: What future for the Nordic model?
Slash taxes and cut benefits to put an end to poverty. This is the recipe that is often prescribed by neo-liberal thinkers to solve society’s woes. Doing the opposite, in their minds,would amount to kill the golden goose of economic development.
3 minutes -
Homo Nordicus in the eyes of a Diego
If you rotate Norway like a compass with Oslo in the centre, the North Cape would hit Rome, I am told. Still there is a full ocean, or maybe several, separating the Nordic and Latin cultures.
3 minutes