Not sure if many readers follow the news about Europe, but a little bit non-serious stuff today ( in honor of Thanksgiving). Especially when you plan to open a business in Europe, you should know the following things:
1. France is on it’s longest transport strike for more than a decade and cripples pretty much all of France. Also 1oooo French Tobacconists strike in France against the smoking ban.
2. Germany also suffers, because of it’s biggest rail strike in history. Currently not only 1000s of people cannot use the train, but also car makers like Audi and VW had to shut down some factories
3. Italy’s soccer hooligans took over the national news recently. Several sources report, that hooliganism and the mafia are strongly connected. Also “famous” Berlusconi is planning his comeback with a new party.
4.Belgium has a government crisis and fights for their kingdom, so it doesn’t fall apart.
5. Hungary rail workers are on strike as well
6. In Spain only Barcelona has some issues: Just about everything that can break down has
7. Britain is currently doing not so bad, except that the French strike effects their power supplies
Glad to see that at least the Scanindavian countries are fully operational at this point Happy Thanksgiving 
November 21st, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Ja, Ja! I agree with your comments. It’s really a bourse of
cats this Europe. For many years our countries were
manipulated by a generation of ideologists, people who
believed that they were the beginning of a kind of new era.
The reality was least brilliant…
Best regards,
Valencia-Spain