2012 should bring already some added value to the life of the older segment of the population.

The European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing produced since November 2012 the Strategic Implementation Plan on Active and Healthy Ageing which identifies key action areas that should bring about two extra healthy life years (HLYs) to its citizens. Be it through better ways of prevention, screening and early diagnosis or better care and cure, there are many opportunities for more and better both on the side of patients as well as on more systemic issues, where stakeholders such as  healthcare professionals and pharmaceutical groups are at a core.

But 2012 is also the European Year of Active Ageing and Intergenerational S0lidarity and beyond the events dedicated to the topic, there is a clear opportunity for more and better as more citizens and civil society organisations can network better, synergise and be informed.

For more information on the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing, please consult:

http://ec.europa.eu/research/innovation-union/index_en.cfm?section=active-healthy-ageing

http://ec.europa.eu/research/innovation-union/pdf/active-healthy-ageing/leaflet.pdf#view=fit&pagemode=none

For more information on the European Year 2012, please click here: http://www.healthyageing.eu/ or here: http://europa.eu/ey2012/ey2012.jsp?langId=en.

Last week I went to Romania on holiday. I was thrilled to see the beauty of this country and even notice some changes.

My plane landed in Bucharest and my parents waited for me at the airport to go straight home, to Zarnesti, Brasov in Transylvania. I woke up the next morning and was dazzled by the blue sky, sunny weather and fresh air I could breath and went into my mum’s garden to smell the flowers, drink my coffee in a swing and simply enjoy the beauty. Then, I decided to go to Brasov and on my way I noticed that yes, it’s possible, there are some small visible changes in Romania.

The agricultural fileds are more orderly. The hay stacks are no longer scattered and pilled as if thrown like dice but hay is now rolled rather than pilled and arranged orderly.

The people, as usual, happy to see Romanians coming back from abroad, they keep their spirits high and their pride up, because in spite of the poverty there are many still proud to be Romanian, struggling but making jokes about the hardships of today.

Brasov was packed with tourists as they all wanted to smell fresh air, eat some grilled meat and enjoy the mountains.

Until the next time that I go back to Romania, I hope to see more changes than just the hay stacks.

Thoughts on Individualism

Hide in a car, then in an office, rarely/barely look up, an electrifying smile, a constant need to reinforce the trends that pressure you and push you against a wall like battered eggs in a pan. Could it be your brain or is there something more important than those mental excuses?

Too many mental excuses almost always lead one to either learning the hard way or getting out of track.

There’s a new game in town opposing socker! Socker, we are proud to say, was invented by US, Europeans! We need to show the world we can play chess as well, ‘but who do I call for Europe’?

I’m told these days that interests and politics are interlinked and can hardly if ever become mutually exclusive. Why should the Constitutional Court (Prague) give an opinion on the constitutionality of the Treaty of Lisbon? I can take two routes in understanding this: the naive or the skeptic/critical/analytical one.

If I decide to trust it all in the name of democracy then I’ll buy the naive story but if not, I’d bet some money on the second, analytical route. Moravcsic or not, this could be national interest at play that fits the needs of other IR or European players. Hence, there could be a third route as well, the intergovernmental, neo-realist one.

I said I’d bet some money on the second route not just because I am European or because I read the Treaty of Lisbon but also because I am still naive: I believe that knowing political science comes with some responsability.  Hence, I decided to exercise my rights and enjoy my freedom and there you go – I published some ideas online.

The morale of the story – trust with caution, never stop thinking but most of all do not let your ideas bounce back into a wall!

http://www.euractiv.com/en/future-eu/eurosceptic-czech-senators-put-lisbon-treaty-hold/article-185888

http://www.euractiv.com/en/health/swine-flu-alert-issued-cases-reported-europe/article-181704

Euractiv reports on the cases found in Europe.

Anamaria C

This is to show the importance of putting complex analysis into plain English (and the problems that come with that).

http://nobelprize.org/mediaplayer/index.php?id=1049&view=3

Those who know Romanian can check this book out:

Gheorghe Benga ?i Ana Maria Corca

nbsp;www.pkarchive.com   If interested in sound economic explanations he should be your guy. He is an MIT professor and  NYT

contributor.

Please feel free to leave your comments and feedback.

Ana

My new blog has just been approved and I would like to thank Pierre and the others.

Hopefully this will be a place of debate and discussion about the elephant known as the EU.

If anyone wants to share anything interesting that has happened during the last week pls feel free to do so.

Best,

ANAMARIA