I am writing a proposal for the European Leonardo da Vinci programme which is why there are few posts of late. Proposal writing deadens the brain.

As you would expect there are endless documents to plough through - guides for proposers, administrative handbooks and so son. There is also something called "Labour Cost by profile per day, selection 2006 - Euro".

This provides the maximum allowable day rate per country.

It's pretty revealing stuff - given all the hot air about a social Europe.

The maximum for a a manager in Sweden is 480 Euro, in the UK 408 Euro. IN Romania it is 72 Euro and in Bulgaria just 28 euro. In ireland an administrative worker can claim 328 Euro - in estonia 30 and Bulgaria 13 Euro.

This is not right. How can we build communities of practice which include such gross inequalities?

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