Problems with Pensions

The European Union has some great ideals. One of them is free movement of its citizens between the member states. This, of course, necessitates the implementation of systems to cover health care (already a touchy subject, if one takes as an example the situation of the state health care in Spain when applied to non-Spanish residents) and, of course, pensions.

The time has come to apply for Elise's pension. I therefore checked the website of the European Union to find out what a European citizen from one member state now residing in another had to do in order to claim their pension.

The site contains all sorts of apparently useful information and should form a reliable source for European citizens wishing to check on their rights on various issues. The information is available in many of the languages used in the EU (sadly, Welsh is not represented).

The page that deals with retiring abroad (here in English and here in Dutch) states,

When the time comes for you to claim your pension, you'll have to apply in the country where you're living - unless you have never worked there. In this case, you should apply where you last worked.

 Als voor u de tijd is gekomen om op pensioen te gaan, moet u dat aanvragen in het land waar u woont, tenzij u daar nooit hebt gewerkt. In dat geval moet u de aanvraag indienen in het land waar u het laatst hebt gewerkt.

Note, "…unless you have never worked there. In this case, you should apply where you last worked."

That seems clear enough and, given that Elise last worked in Belgium (she stopped working in 1982), we took it to mean that she should apply for her pension to the Belgian pension authorities, the Rijksdienst voor Pensioenen, in the Zuidertoren in Brussels.

The necessary information was sent together with a request for payment of pension, but soon the request was returnd with a covering letter in which was stated,

U moet in principe uw aanvraag indienen bij de bevoegde pensioeninstelling van uw land, omdat u in een land woont van de Europese Economische Ruimte (EER)…

U gaat met dit bericht en de bijgevoegde aanvraag als bijlage naar de bevoegde pensioeninstelling met het verzoek ons de gebruikelijke verbindingsformulieren en een kopie van uw originele aanvraag naar mijn diensten toe te sturen

In principle, as you live in a country of the European Economic Area (EEA), you have to make your request to the authorised pensions service of your country…

Take this notice together with the enclosed request to the authorised pensions service and aske that they send the usual forms and a copy of your original request to my services…

This appears to be different to what the EU had to say on the matter in their own website, so Elise phoned the Rijksdienst voor Pensioenen in Brussels and pointed out the discrepancies, noting that she had never worked in Spain and that her last employment was in Belgium in 1982.

Her explanation was simply brushed aside. Nope, that's the way things have to be done and the EU website must refer to functionaries (civil servants).

Well, no, the website does not refer to functionaries: it refers to State Pensions for Citizens.

I suspect that the wording of the EU's website is unclear and that the pension authorities in the various countries really are acting correctly. Whatever the reason, the result is confusion for the EU citizen. This might result in mistrust and suspicion of any other information that can be found on the EU site regarding the rights and obligations of such sitizens and that is simply not a desirable situation.

Somebody from the Plain English Campaign (and the Plain Dutch Campaign, too, if there is one) needs to tidy up the information provided by the EU.

In Belgium

So here we are in Belgium.

We left Guardamar last Thursday morning and drove to Jaca, in the Pyrenees, where we spent the night in the very pleasant Eurostars Reina Felicia hotel. It would have been even more pleasant if a couple of brats had not been allowed to use one of the corridors as a practise area for the 100 metre sprint and their parents had not then punished one of them by locking him out of their room, prompting him to scream his head off for a good ten minutes.

Still, the room was excellent, very clean, very well equipped, and the hotel was in a quiet location, just outside the town of Jaca. Of course, it would have been much quieter without the aforementioned couple of brats, who also made their presence known in the breakfast-room. A very good breakfast buffet, incidentally.

After Jaca we drove through the Somport tunnel into France. An impressive tunnel of some nine kilometres in length. Then onto Pau, the worst part of the journey, not because of the scenery, which is often spectacular, but because of the drive around the intervening town of Oloron-Sainte-Marie, which is very slow. By the evening of the second day we had arrived in Tours. Nothing at all special about the relatively cheap French hotel there, except that it was more expensive than the hotel in Jaca and offered considerably less quality and comfort.

We had intended to visit Brittany on our journey from Spain to Belgium, but the French weather reports were so bad for that part of the country that we simply drove straight through to Belgium. Well, that's not entirely true, as we did make a slight detour in order to visit the village of Bergues in French Flanders. Bergues was the main location for the hilarious French film, Bienvenue Cez Les Ch'tis, an we wanted to see the real thing. We thought it would be a good idea to get a packet of chips and a frikadel from the baraque à frites on the Grote Markt, but sadly we learned that the mobile chip-shop was put there only for the film. Still, we had a cup of coffee in the café that was the scene of the bicycle crash (Café de la Porte in the film, but Café de la Poste in reality) and also visited the belfry, which played such an important part in the film, so all was not lost!

The Grote Markt (Grand Place) without the baraque à frites, but with the impressive belfry.

In the tourist information office (in the belfry) one of the post-bikes from the film.

The location of the bicycle crash, the Café de la Porte/Poste

From Bergues it was just a relatively short drive to Heusden, near. Gent, where we arrived at about seven-thirty on Saturday evening.

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Magnifique!

Italy 11 England 52

Wales 51 Scotland 3

France 20 Ireland 22



Well, that was a good way to spend a Saturday afternoon.



Rugby.



Three games.



And they got better as the afternoon progressed.



It's easy to make a half-good side look very good: give it a game against a pretty terrible side. And that's exactly what happened in the first two matches.



England had the fright of their lives in the first quarter against Italy, with the Italian pack proving the better of the two, but as the game progressed, Italy's indiscipline and lack of staying-power worked against them (as well as an unfortunate forward pass following an excellent interception) and England were able to secure a very easy victory, though not without conceding a try and two penalties. Better luck next year, Italy. Get your discipline together and tighten up your second-half performance. As for England, they would have to await the outcome of the final match of the tournament, France against Ireland to know if they'd win. Oh, and England, please don't throw the ball away when you score a try: three points away if I were the ref, or at least a yellow card. Prima Donnas belong in soccer, not in rugby. (And here's a nice aside: the commentator on France 2 introduced the English national anthem as Flower of Scotland; unfortunately, God Save The Queen was played.)



Heaven only knows what Scotland is up to. They made Wales look almost good. The game was like so many we played at school in the 1960s (yes, that long ago): get the ball, score a try, start again. The only difference is that we'd reach scores of 70, 80, or 90 (and this when a try was just three points), whereas Wales could only manage 51 (and this against just 14 Scotsmen, Hogg having been sent off very early on), thanks to some desperate Scottish defence work. (Another aside: usually the commentator on France 2 introduces the Welsh national anthem using the colonist title of Land of My Fathers, but this time he announced it as Pays de mes Ancêtres, which is an improvement, if still not quite Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau.)



And then came the real stuff. France against Ireland. To be honest, it seemed that France didn't have much of a chance against what was clearly the best team by far of the tournament, yet they were still in with a chance. The only drawback (and it was a big one) was that if France managed to win, England would take the championship, so although I really wanted France to win, I didn't…



Well, what a game! Sheer rugby pleasure with both teams fighting desperately for every ball and every inch of the field. The lead went backwards and forwards throughout the game and with just a couple of minutes to go, Ireland was ahead, 22 to 20.  Then the French headed for the Irish line: a try in the corner was sufficient, it need not be converted, so position was unimportant. And, indeed, over they went! Unfortunately, however, the last long pass had been fractionally forward (well, chwarae teg, a bit more than fractionally), and after some considerable deliberation, the try was disallowed. With some ninety seconds remaining, that sealed the victory and the championship for Ireland.



Well done Ireland.



Well played France. By far your best performance of the tournament. Magnifique!



England finished second; Wales third; France fourth; Scotland fift; Italy sixth.



When does next year start?

Chwarae teg

England 29 Leigh Halfpenny 18


Well, that should be Wales 18, of course, but, chwarae teg, it was Leigh Halfpenny who scored the eighteen points and the rest of performance was pretty poor.

But, chwarae teg, it was a lot better than the performance by the Welsh team in their first match of this year’s Championship, against Ireland.

Perhaps it’s just that Ireland are so much better than England, though, chwarae teg, that seems unlikely. England played well today, even though they seemed not to have needed to put in a 100% performance. Still, chwarae teg, they were playing against a pretty uninspired Welsh side that, when it attacked, did so down the blind side in an ever so predictable fashion, so the strong English defence had no problem with that, and if they didn’t attack, they kicked, nicely giving the ball to an English side that soon proved it could kick with the best of them, not that that stopped the Welsh from kicking.

On three occasions, Wales actually managed to create overlaps when heading straight for the line at a brisk pace, only to kick the ball unnecessarily or to go into a tackle, just as unnecessarily, and then lose possession.

Chwarae teg, England looked far more dangerous in attack and it was only some remarkable defence by Wales that prevented an even higher score on the England side of the board.

This win gives England the Triple Crown. Well done. Next week, if they beat Italy by about five million points, they’ll also win the Championship. Of course, France might beat Ireland and that would mean a quite undeserved Championship for France… chwarae teg.

(And now, if nothing else, you should know what the Welsh expression, chwarae teg, means.)

Sacré Rouge!

Wales 27 France 6


Both Wales and France had a lot to prove in their meeting at the Millennium Stadium in Caerdydd earlier this evening. Wales had played pretty terribly against Ireland two weeks ago, when they were well and truly beaten and gave little to hope for in their remaining games of the championship. France beat Italy, but unconvincingly, playing well for little more than 15 of the ninety minutes.

Still, I honestly didn't think that Wales would be able to improve sufficiently to offer much of a challenge to even a relatively poor France.

Was I mistaken!

France was basically outplayed for the whole of the ninety minutes. Even during France's best attacking moments, just about all of which came in the second half, Wales put up a sterling and effective defence, disrupting the French and often leading to indiscipline.

The Welsh lineout was better than it has been so far in the series, the passing was better, the scrummaging was shocking on both sides, but that's more to do with modern scrum laws than anything else.

Now if only Wales would learn not to kick unnecessarily, thereby giving the ball to the opposition in good running positions, and if they continue to play decent rugby, they might even have a chance of a decent final position in the championship: four wins out of five is a good possibility now and that might be enough to take the championship yet again—much will depend on how other teams perform (I don't look forward to England beating Ireland, but at this stage I wouldn't mind if Ireland loses!).

As for France: sortez la guillotine! French players must learn to accept the decisions of the match officials: this is not soccer, so you do not argue with the referee or linesmen, nor do you disdainfully applaud the referee for sending sinbinning you. Not just yellow cards, but red cards should have been shown.

Duw, Duw!

Ireland 26 Wales 3

The commentator on France 2 lauded the praises of the Welsh national anthem, but still insisted on referring to it by its colonialist name of Land of My Fathers. That was just the beginning of a lot worse to come.

You have to wonder why the Welsh team bothered to travel to Ireland, unless they were looking forward to the après-match célidh, if there is such a thing.

Really, there was only one team in the whole game and that most certainly wasn’t Wales. The few Welsh attempts at attack faded to nothing; the Welsh kicked, but why was a mystery and they then either missed touch, or got the ball kicked back with advantage, or both; they lacked discipline, giving away silly penalties; they knocked the ball forward (it seemed more times than they had chance to pass the thing!), they were lousy in the lineout… Well, you get the picture. Wales was quite simply terrible. Wales had one decent pass at a try and that was correctly disallowed, which was just as well, as just a couple of minutes before Ireland had been denied a line-out on the Welsh line and, given the Irish packs magnificent mauling performance, that would have been a certain try for Ireland.

Well done Ireland. You played well and gave the Welsh plenty to think about.

Way to go, David!

Here's a news story you might have missed. And that's a pity, for it is a story of courage, common-sense, and utter love.

The story concerns a couple from Friesland in The Netherlands. David Postma and his wife, Willemke, had been married for 61 years. David was 86 years old and Willemke 84. Willemke had been suffering with her health for several years and in November she had to be taken to hospital and it looked as if she would then have to go into a care-home. Although David had been in relatively good health up until then, he too, felt that he had had enough of life. They therefore decided together to put an end to their lives and chose a date in January to do so, informing their children of their decision.

January was chosen so that they could spend a final Christmas and New Year together with all the family.

According to Dutch law, David and Willemke could not ask for help from their doctors, as they were not in the unbearable and hopeless medical situation that Dutch law requires for this. David, however, used the Internet to search for a solution, and this he found in an organization called De Einder. With their help David was able to complete all the necessary formalities, and locate the products needed to prepare the potion. He took care of everything, even returning letters that arrived during the last few weeks, marking them "deceased" and stopping any subscriptions that were still active.

David and Willemke made no secret of their intentions and both family and friends were informed of the chosen date, so that there was plenty of time for good-byes. Christmas was a very pleasant occasion, with the whole family getting together in one of their son's houses. Old photos were passed around, together with plenty of memories, some tears, but also a lot of joy, remembering the happy times.

On the final day, a Saturday, the family gathered again, this time at David and Willemke's house. Willemke's favourite accordion music was playing and there was some dancing. Willemke remarked how nice it was to be able to dance out of life. David prepared two pots of yoghurt and the plan was that he and Willemke would each eat a pot while lying on their bed. This is what happened, too, and as each felt the effects of the potion, they waved a final goodbye to their family members.

David had prepared the notice of death for publication in the local newspaper. He even composed a poem to be included in it. The last line read, "Wy ferlitte no tefreden dit ierdse bestean, it wie ús tiid, wy gean." (Contented, we leave this earthly existence, it is our time, we are going.)

David and Willemke, you're a wonderful example. I wish all the best to the family members that supported you in your courageous action.

You can read a Dutch newspaper report here.