Sevilla Babel

From north east to south west 3870 kilometers separate two European cities Seville and Vilnius. Keeping in mind that both of them are still creating their European identity (as well as, Europe is) one can believe that such distance looses it’s meaning. We are saying that technologies, historical and demographical data enables us to give to the distance a new sense. New European values are created, while eliminating it using legal, political and economical measures. At the same time Sevilnius is intended to create the discussion on how such distance can help.


Before looking for something in common it is important to grasp the differences between prices and purchasing power in Seville and Vilnius. The material value of identity should not be confined to trade marks, however. The survey of goods and services offered for European citizens is only basic information, which will be necessary when unfolding their financial situation and its’ influence to their perception of Europe.

CITY LABOR MARKET

Both cities joined Europe with the similar number of citizens. Today the population of Vilnius city is 550 000, and slightly more 700 000 are living in Seville. Vilnius district has 850 000 registered citizens of Lithuanian, Polish and Russian nationality and Seville metro covers the area, which is home for 1,5 million Andalusians and immigrants from South America.
Sevillians emphasize that most of the people who do not get even the minimum wage are working under temporal contracts or illegally. According to the data of Eurobarometer, 5 % of the Spanish population gets the illegal payment at least once a year. Although, there are twice of such people in Lithuania - 10%, legal wage even for students here is rearly more than a minimum. In Spain, where students get less only because they are studying, those who earn 1000 EUR in their first job have a new name MILEURISTAS. While in Lithuania students and many school children start their career with a half of the minimum 115 EUR.

PLEASURE OF PURCHASING

For those who get the minimum wage 600 EUR in Seville:
• 100 EUR left after buying the stove and the washing machine.
 • 200 EUR left after paying the rent for 1 room apartment not in the city center.

Those who get the minimum wage 230 EUR in Vilnius:
• Should borrow 190 EUR before buying the stove and the washing machine.
• 100 EUR left after paying the rent for 1 room apartment not in the city center.


NEED CHARITY?

For 200 EUR Sevillian can have a dinner in the café the whole month. In Vilnius, 100 EUR is enough for a month to pay the everyday hot dish. While Sevillian, who gets the minimum 600 EUR, pays 1/12 of his wage for a monthly ticket, in Vilnius the same ticket makes 1/12 of the minimum 230 EUR. If Sevillian would like to help poor people he could by 1000 loafs of bread, and the most generous Vilnius worker could only buy 500 of such bread loafs for a minimum wage.

Today the big part of city residents lack of social, and moral incentives to create the common Europe. Thus, the next task of Sevilnius is to compare the role of material values in their life. Does the bigger purchasing power in Seville means, that material values are becoming more and more important in Europe?

Vilnius and Seville teams

Living in Europe is not an easy task for those who earn their money in currencies which are very weak compared to Euro and, besides, for those who live in countries where the cost of living is (very) cheap compared to that of European countries. Who most suffer this problem are Latin American students, as is my case (I’m Brazilian) and that of thousands of persons more. For those who don’t know, Brazilian currency is the “Real”, which is approximately equivalent to 0.38 Euros. Or, in other words, to buy 1 euro, we need 2,57 “reais”.

What can be done with 2,57 reais in Brazil? Or, better yet, with 1 euro? Well, to begin with, the canteen at the public university in my area (Santa Catarina) costs 1,50 reais ( 0,58 euros). You have still got 1,07 reais left( or 0,42 euros) with which you can have an ice-cream cone for dessert, or have 20 pages photocopied at the university photocopier’s. Looks like a dream, doesn’t it? And if you can spend a little more, there is the possibility to eat at the seaside, at one of the best restaurants on the most famous and hectic beaches in Southern Brazil ( Balneario Camborjú) for 30 reais (at the most!) or, approximately 11,70 euros.
Seems cheap? Well, it doesn’t seem, it really is. However, for people working there and getting their salaries in “reais” eating at the seaside is a real privilege (unless you work a lot during the year, to save money for the holidays…), but for those who arrive with their powerful euros, it’s like being in paradise. Now, imagine what happens with a student who comes from Brazil and has to pay 6,50 euros for a drink at some disco in Seville. He or she simply goes nuts when imagining all the things he could do in Brazil with these 16,70 reais. Well, the same student could go 4 times to the cinema (using the student’s card) and he/she still would have 2,70 reais left to buy two small packets of popcorn.

Well, I want to be fair. Not all the discos in Seville charge 6,50 euros a drink, do they? There are some which charge 8,50 euros a drink, too! And that really hurts a foreigner’s pocket! These 21,84 reais pay for 3 of my meals at the restaurant I usually eat in Brazil ( dessert and soft drink/juice/beer included!). Look at that! Let’s move on from meals to something wider. Let’s talk about housing.
I’ve already been told that housing in Seville isn’t expensive compared to Madrid, Barcelona, Milan o Rome, for example. Let’s see, sharing an apartment near the Cathedral with 3 more people, costs approximately 300 euros (771 reais). With the same 300 euros, on the same beach I mentioned before, I could rent a two- bedroom apartment (or even three bedrooms!), furnished, with a land line phone, broadband Internet, with community included and another detail: everything just for me! As nobody rents something that big just for themselves, it is usually shared. Let’s suppose that two people share an apartment like this, they’ve got 385,5 reais (150 euros) still left to spend during the month. Well, you can eat 64 times at the “daily” restaurant I mentioned before (or three times at the seaside), or buy two new jeans, or two pairs of new trainers (and good ones!), or three new imported perfumes, or pay the transport to university during seven months, or simply do the monthly shopping at the supermarket and there would be approximately 150 reais still left for next month shopping. There are a lot of options…

It is for these and other reasons that when I spend six euros on tickets for the cinema, 6,50 euros on a drink, 300 euros on the rent, 30 euros monthly on transport, almost 40 euros on the weekly shopping, 35 euros monthly on Internet and some other “fixed” expenses, I don’t calculate how much this would be in reais. Who is in Europe has to make the most of it and besides, he/she knew from the arrival that they were going to spend more money. So, I prefer to think in euros, because if I convert…I don’t have fun!

Gabriela Azevedo Forlin
Translated by Diana Irene Arancibia

Federico García Moliner was awarded the prize “Príncipe de Asturias” for Technical and Scientific Investigation, due to his excellent work in the field of Physics. He is one of the great Spanish scientists of our time; however, when listening to him, nothing would make you think he’s such an illustrious personality.
Dressed up in a quite colourful bow tie and a broad smile, Moliner showed up not only to give his lecture, but also to listen to the rest of them, in which he participated with great interest, asking questions in the round of questions and not hesitating to hand over the students his turn of speaking, although the organizers had given him primacy over the rest. Telling this is not trivial, since it’s a sign of his humane character, and that was the central topic of the conference.

Just the beginning of his lecture drew strong applause: “You may wonder how science is made…Well, I’ll read Ana Maria Matute for you to understand it” And, he read for us Ana Maria Matute’s description of the writing process. For those who haven’t come close to sciences except in high school, listening to such an exquisite comparison between science and writing was an absolute joy. ”There´s a lot of beauty in science”, he told us and, no doubt, he could transmit the idea well.
His defence of culture is based on its importance, since it determines the way in which we use the brain”. Our limited concept of it, impairs a greater intellectual and personal development, since we insist on “radically differentiate culture and material world, even though they are the same thing or, in other words, they are co-existent and inter-related realities”.

“The artist and the scientist are so similar…” he told us, “both seek to find an explanation of the world and transmit it”. It’s a lovely way of understanding science and art, beauty and ideas. Perhaps Moliner was thinking about the Gernika or the structure of fractals when he declared: “Not only is there beauty in art, but also profound ideas; not only are there profound ideas in science, but there’s room for beauty too”.

Sara Domínguez Martín
Translated by Diana Irene Arancibia

Emilio Lledó Iñigo was born in Sevilla 81 years ago, but he stays young. This philosopher is, above all, a fan of language. He weighs and tastes every word and manages to deliver a discourse that feels like savoring the best of meals. And not because he uses complex or poetic words, but because of the opposite: the precision and naturalness with which he conveys the most abstract ideas. He is one of those cases that exemplify well that one’s wisdom is not necessarily reflected in the use of elaborate words.

More than optimistic, Emilio Lledó starts his speech with a warning: “Do not let them convince you that life is worse than it was back in the day… no, no, no… I have lived enough and I can assure you that this saying has been going on for years and that life as we know it is much better than before. Despite the brutality, violence, and barbarity of humankind, we do not have the right to stop fighting for life, love, words… we do not have the right to lose hope, because it is not so true that as long as there is life, there is hope, but rather as long as there is hope, there is life.”

But, what is the key to progress? to life? Words. According to him, “being able to use words is what makes us human”. His message flows around words, language as the connecting thread of life. “The world is full of mother tongues, but it is not them that define us, root languages do.” Those root languages, beyond the frontiers marked by mother tongues, are “the fingerprint of our soul, everyone has its own.” This variety of root languages is what enriches the World, according to Lledó.
“Writing allows us to communicate with root languages, with Kant, Descartes… and talking allows us to do so with the root languages that surround us.” Therefore, diversity is not an obstacle to understand the attitude some have towards the Tower of Babel, but more like a way of enriching ourselves, sharing opinions that allow us to understand the Other to, starting from there, engage in dialogue with each individual, using other root languages, with other people.

Europe - although Lledó did not mention it - is a clear example of the search for union, not in unification but rather in the enrichment that can be reached through diversity when there is understanding. It is, or at least it could be.

Sara Domínguez Martín
Translated by Cristina Crosby

If the world were divided in “lambs and fighters”, Arturo Pérez-Reverte would be, according to his own words, a fighter. This Spanish writer, born in Cartagena in 1951, is known above all in this aspect, because of his saga of Captain Alatriste. But, what molded the tough personality this author takes pride on today, was his work as a journalist, his profile of adventurous young man.

“Everything started at a library” he tells us; and that awoke his imagination. At 20, his rucksack on his shoulder, he decided to visit places and know the characters in the books. “At that age I was young and cruel, the world was my scenario”, perhaps that’s why he chose territories at war. Because of that, also, he became a reporter, because he felt like a hunter, an image hunter. “When one goes to war with a return ticket in one’s pocket, the war looks like a fascinating world”.
His duty at Human Factor was to teach a lesson to the 800 young people who listened to him, but in this case, far from Ana María Matute’s warmth, his message was rather more cynical. “I’ve got a bad opinion on the human being, the human being’s drive is evil, the human being is a son of a bitch, although later culture and society may turn him even good”. Perhaps Reverte also read in his youth some book by Hobbes and learnt that “man is a wolf to men”, or perhaps, and more likely, the war taught him the dark side of men.

Pérez-Reverte, may be in Spain today, but with his heart still at any of the wars, speaks of distrust, of dignity, of esteem (but not of love), of battles and victories. He spoke to us about the Ulysses of the world, “about those heroes that survive, when Achilles turns into Ulysses, then only one hard-hearted hero can remain”. Is he perhaps a hero in his own way?
“What’s the use of fighting, Arturo?”, he is asked, “To feel worthy, not to feel defeated”.

Sara Domínguez Martín
Translated by Diana Irene Arancibia

When on January 1st 2007 Bulgaria and Rumania officially entered the European Union, an explosion of joy invaded the streets of both countries. They regarded the integration into the European Community as a way of starting a journey towards development in search of the economic convergence with the rest of the continent, which is still a very distant goal.

Eleven years after they requested their incorporation, Rumania and Bulgaria became full members of the EU, thus increasing to 493 million the number of inhabitants of the countries represented in the Union. Getting through the European Commission’s difficult test was a great achievement because it carefully followed both countries’ progress in the improvement of their judicial system and the fight against corruption and organized crime. It was a great achievement since the required criteria were more severe than those required to the countries that had joined the EU previously, which grants more merit (if it is possible) to the reform effort, described by European Commission President, Durao Barroso,. as “an amazing transformation”. One year ago, Bucarest and Sofia were the center of a celebration in which the crowd poured out onto the squares and fireworks flew over both capitals to engrave in their citizens’ memory, such a historic date, and the importance of the step they were taking.

European hangover

But, every celebration has to end, and with the European hangover, Rumanians and Bulgarians started to realize that their new European voyage wouldn’t be so easy. Some community countries, Spain among them, set up a moratorium by which the citizens of both new Member States wouldn’t be allowed to be employed within their territory for the next two years, with the aim of preventing dozens of thousands of workers from arriving massively.
The first disappointment was already there. The hopes of many Bulgarian and Rumanian immigrants for the legalization of their situation were postponed for two more years. However, it hasn’t been Spain, but Italy. the country which has driven the Rumanian community crazy during these first 365 days of living together. It occurred because the high criminal rate (15 out of every 100 crimes are committed by Rumanian citizens, according to the Italian police) has caused a feeling of rejection towards the Rumanians, materialized in the Romano Prodi’s Government new decree to facilitate the deportation of those who commit crimes in Italy.

Seville, one of their preferentes

The integration of Rumanians and Bulgarians is, no doubt, one of the challenges the European Union has to face, a reality that is, not only national but also ethic. We must not forget that the gipsy minority represents almost a 5% of the Bulgarian population and roughly a 10% of the Rumanian one. The marginal situation in which most of the gipsy population live (in Bulgaria, 60% of gipsies of labour age declare they are unemployed) causes them to be the most likely community to pack and regard the European adventure, as an answer to their situation. And here is where Spain plays an important role, since it is the main recipient of these countries’ immigration, with a Rumanian community which exceeds the half a million inhabitants and a Bulgarian population close to one hundred thousand people. If we investigate which cities have had the greatest increase in their population coming from both countries, we learn that Seville leads the national ranking, because its population has multiplied by six the number of Rumanian citizens ( the great majority belong to the gipsy ethnic group) who live in the Sevillian capital in just one year, passing from 1,300 to 9,000.

Towards the economic convergente?

Bulgaria and Rumania’ joint GDP represents only 1% of the total of EU , while its population exceeds a 6%, which clearly illustrates that today, they are well at the back of the Union and gives an idea of the long way they have ahead towards the economic convergence with the rest of the EU countries. If we consider their per capita income, they don’t come off well, either (it represents one third of the average community income). This situation of clear weakness within the European Union has its advantages too, because both countries will receive during the three-year- period 2007-2009 financial assistance worth 13.000 million of Euros with a view to European funds, 30% of which will be destined to the agrarian sector. The race towards convergence has started; a slow but steady growth which is bound to change the Eastern Europe landscape we see these days. That financial assistance will help many people to avoid looking for good jobs outside their country, and will put an end to their condition of “immigrant exporting” countries, as there will be a great need of workforce to put in operation a great economic machinery. Today, Bulgarians and Romanians feel that, going hand in hand with Europe, their future will be more prosperous than it was one year ago. However, as the Bulgarian president Georgi Parvanov rightly said, “ our success as a country won’t depend on the European funds, it will depend on our work.”

Álvaro Sánchez
Translated by Diana Irene Arancibia

FROM GRANT HOLDERS TO CLIENTS

One of the foundations the European Universities Reform is based on is the relationship company-university. In this relationship the banks enter the game; they will have, through the legislative framework, the role of financial creditors for the university studies. If they lend the money, will the government aids be totally eliminated? Maybe the welfare State wasn’t the panacea.



In the Resolution of March 21st in the Spanish Official Gazette (BOE) the banks are called to participate in the “subsidized loan programme”. We are witnesses to the qualitative transformation of the scholarship system we have now, and which will exist until the definitive incorporation to the EEES, when the students will become borrowers instead of grant-holders. It means that they will be clients of a bank, which will provide them with an amount between 3000 and 9000 Euros for the complete grade, which together with the postgraduate degree or master and doctorate, constitute the new university offer, according to the established in Bologna and related successive documents.

The new loans will be applied a three-year amortization period, plus another year of grace period (during which the customer won’t be charged any interest). The grace-period interest will be accumulated to the three remaining years. The “Euribor” will come to be decisive in the new “university client’s life. During the first year of amortization, banks will apply to the loan the interest rate corresponding to Euribor mortgage market of June, published in the Spanish Official Gazette (BOE), plus a maximum differential of 0.3 %. During the three following years in which the loan is in effect, the collaborating bank will use the interest rate equivalent to Euribor corresponding to June in each year, increasing it by a maximum of 0.3 % .

One of the news in the Education Budget for 2008 is “University Income Loans” . This initiative has been launched in September 2007 by the Ministry. With this initiative, the State intends to finance the university graduates under 35 years old, who want to continue their “investment-studies” with an official master, which will be related to the future income of the beneficiary, with the aim of promoting postgraduate studies.

Compared to the conventional loans, the main difference of this financing method is that there’s no charge for interest or commission, and endorsements or family income conditioning are not required., The repayment of the loan will be done during the two years after it’s obtained. After that date, the Tax Agency (AEAT) will check the “student-client’s income yearly, to verify the income level. Once he/she reaches an income of 22,000 Euros/year, they will start to repay the loan, and will only continue to repay it while the income level is maintained. If during fifteen years the total amount or part of it can’t be paid, the remaining amount won’t have to be repaid. In case the income is greater than 22,000 Euros the repayment will be completed in eight years, paying each three months the same amount, and the total amount of the yearly amortizations won’t exceed the eighth part of the total contracted debt.

Considering this situation, two new profiles of the “student-client” are foreseen: the one who solves his studies by using the checkbook, and the one who, being 18 years old, starts to repay the bank loan.

Rosa María Romero Pérez
Translated by, Diana Irene Arancibia.

The setting in operation of the European Space of Higher Education (EEES) involves the implantation of the European credit as the assessment unit of the University teaching. The European system of transfer and accumulation of credits (ECTS) replaces the about 10-hour-teaching for each credit in the current Spanish system with a period between 25 and 30 hours of student work. This work includes the hours of theory and practice classes, consultancies, seminars, the daily personal study, the evaluated assignments and the practice carried out at companies which are part of the official programme of study.

The ECTS (European Credit Transfer System) was adopted in 1989, within the framework of Erasmus programme, and its approval in our country is set in the Royal Decree 1125/2003 . At the beginning, it was used for the acknowledgement of foreign study periods, but it is currently becoming a system of accumulation at a European level in order to meet the goals of the 1999 Bolonia Declaration. Despite the generalized rejection on the part of the students and many professors grouped in platforms, the Ministry of Education and the Spanish universities are working non-stop to put into action, from the next year of study (2008-2009) the EEES’ requirements since , as the Bolonia Declaration states, the deadline is 2010.

The current concept of qualifications will disappear to give way to the Grades. In our country its duration will be of four years , mostly they will have 60 credits for each academic year, which involves approximately 40 weekly hours of work, with obligatory attendance to classes and consultancies. Within this system there’s no room for the students to study and work at the same time. Masters will become official and will have a study load of 60 or 120 European credits, which is equivalent to one or two academic years.
By means of these measures, the “European university” imposes the discipline of working hours, to adjust the university students to work in companies and teach them to work under the pressure of stress.

Daniel Domínguez
Translated by Diana Irene Arancibia

Bullfighting provokes multiple feelings in the watcher, especially if it is your first time in the alley, as it happened to me with this image. Besides, the sensations keep changing at the same rhythm of your heartbeat. You feel everything but indifference. I have friends in all the sides, and I doubt that, after years of debate, I can contribute something definite about this subject: the bull’s sacrifice on the sand of a bullring. This way I I spare myself several paragraphs with my opinion
I named the picture “Vampire”. God knows why us the photographers have a need for naming our favourite gazes with a proper name, as if we were afraid of them not being suggestive enough by themselves. Images deeply etched in our childish minds because of terror films, based on fangs and bats. The smell of blood, imposible to suggest ( or maybe not) through visual language. The bullfighter-vampire, as a need of a victim and blood. Everything is very suggestive. We already know the end of the film.

Photo and comments by Julio González
Translated by Diana Irene Arancibia