KNOWING ABOUT THIS..

DECEMBER 3: On Sunday, December 6, Romania will have parliamentary elections.   This is a good occasion to tell a bit about that country. Its size is 238.000 sq.km – about half the size of Spain.   It has 20 million inhabitants. This includes a Hungarian-speaking minority of 1,2 million and a small German-speaking minority of 36.000 persons.   Before World War II about 800.000 German-speakers lived in Romania, but many of the emigrated to Germany and elsewhere.    There are about 3,4 million Romanians living in the OECD countries. Romania’s present president, Klaus Iohannis, comes from the German-speaking minority. He was also chairman of the liberal party. The country has borders with Bulgaria to the south, with Serbia to the west, Hungary to the north and Ukraine and Moldovia to the east. Romania became a member of EU in 2004. It is still not a member of the Schengen-cooperation or of the EURO area.   But it will join both, when it fulfils the c...

  DECEMBER 2: Today I want briefly to tell about the Danish word HYGGE !   Why ?   Because I got inspired by Belgian television news ( RTBF ).   A couple of days ago we almost spilled our apéro on the floor, when we heard the speaker say: HYGGE !    She told us that she as a Francophone speaker had used a lot of time to learn have to pronounce the word properly!   This is difficult for French speaking persons.   But she absolutely got it right.   Then her news presented and explained HYGGE during a few minutes.   The did it for 2 reasons:   they wanted to explain their viewers how to spend our present lockdown time in a better way – with HYGGE.   And they also told us that a new Danish hotel called HYGGE HOTEL has started in the centre of Brussels – not far from Place Louise.   It has 60 rooms and looks very nice and Scandinavian.   Have a look – at least on its website:    https://hotelhygge.be Now, wha...

DECEMBER 1: Where does the name December come from? And what is linked to this month? The name December comes from the word decem. This is the Latin name for the figure ten . The reason is that this month was the 10 th month in the old Roman calendar, which originally was made by king Numa Pompilius around 500 BC. In this calendar March was the first month in the year. This calendar was many centuries later replaced by the Gregorian calendar, where January is the first month of each year and where December consequently is month no. 12. This calendar was introduced from around 1580. It Denmark it happened in the year 1700. In the old days this month was in Denmark ( and the other Nordic countries, I believe ) called KRISTMÅNED ( CHRIST MONTH ).   Or CHRISTMAS MONTH. There are several old Danish weather warnings for the month of December: ·        A cold December with lots of snow will often mean that the next summer will be very good and fe...

NOVEMBER 29: What do you know about ADVENT and the traditional ADVENT WREATH used in Denmark and Germany ?   As most people know Advent in the Western Christian church is the period from the 4 th Sunday before the birth of Jesus. You talk about the 1 st , the 2 nd , the 3 rd and the 4 th Sunday of Advent. The word advent comes from Latin:  Adventum, which means Coming .  The coming of Jesus. The first Sunday in Advent is also the start of the new church year. The traditional colour of Advent is purple . It is a symbol of fast, which in a way is also part of the Advent period. This colour is also the royal colour. Perhaps originally with reference to the arrival of the king Jesus. In the Orthodox church you do not celebrate Advent in the same way. You talk instead about Nativity Fast , fast before the arrival of Jesus. It starts some days before Advent. And it is not the start of the church year. The so-called Advent Wreath ( see photo ) started in Ger...

NOVEMBER 24: This is the day! The day when president Trump finally three weeks after the American elections de facto accepts that Joe Biden has won the elections.   And won by a big margin.   So, now US is coming back to the world.   The nominations president-elect Biden is doing shows that he is choosing experienced and professional people, who know what they will be responsible for.   This is also great news for Europe.    The European-American relations will now come back on the track – as real allies, not as sort of adversaries, as Trump preferred to see them.   EU president Charles Michel yesterday congratulated Biden with his victory and invited him to a summit meeting with EU in Brussels next year, after he has taken over in January. The EU with its 448 mio. inhabitants and the US with 328 mio. have a lot in common.   Their mutual trade is huge. In 2019 it was 720 billion dollars – which is about one third of all international trade. ...

NOVEMBER 19: Tonight the European Council ( the EU Summit of heads and state and government ) will meet by video conference. One of the topics to be discussed will, of course, be the fight against the corona pandemy and what to do in the future. I make every day a short overview of the corona situation in Europe – based on public information.   See below. OBS:   If you want to be on my mailing list and get the updated overview every day, please, let me know. CORONA DEVELOPMENT Short daily overview based on official figures ( Inf.=infected; Dea= deaths ) DATE:           EU- 27           EU-27                    DK INF.        DK   DEATH              B INF.         B   DEATH   ...

NOVEMBER 17: One of the many questions I often have is: What has the EU done to improve the environment over the years? It is evident that densely populated and highly industrialised countries like the member states of the European Union do not only have an interest in protecting the environment, but that they also will do something about it.   Programmes to protect the environment started in different countries at different times. And from the mid 1960ies joint initiatives were also taken at EU level. In 1967 it started with a directive on labelling of dangerous chemicals. But it was only from November 1973 that EU activities really started in this important area.   At that moment the first EU Action programme for protection of the environment was adopted and put into action.   It happened as a follow-up to the United Nations environment conference in Stockholm the year before. And it was during the first Danish EU presidency that the programme was adopted. From ...