-Which activities does Goethe Institut offer to promote workers’ mobility and interchanges between Spain and Germany?
-Goethe Institut promotes the mobility of its workers through a “country exchange” program. The employers can request the move to a Goethe Institut of another city or country, in which they can work for three years. After this period they can change the country or go back to the starting one. The Institut offers some facilities to ease workers’ mobility: for example they financed my removal and helped me with a real estate service.
-According to your opinion, which are the main obstacles to mobility?
-Red tape slows the adaptation process. For example, I had to pass through a never ending exchanging of documents to register my German car in Barcelona.  It’s not a problem, because I know that things go this way, but it would be better if paperwork was faster. On the other hand, if you have a family, it is supposed to join your “mobility spirit”. For example, I went to Barcelona with my wife, who works as teacher in the Goethe Institut, and, from this point of view, it was not a problem, due to the possibility we both have to choose the city where we would like to work. But one of my daughter, the older one, studies in Germany. The last year she went to Spain with the ERASMUS project but at the end of the project, she came back. My son attended the “German School” of Barcelona, passed “selectividad” (Spanish exam to go to university) and now he studies in Germany, too.
-Any pros of mobility?
-Move to another country is an endless adventure, exciting and stimulating. A continuous learning system. Furthermore, the chance to move staying

into the same company, it’s a great opportunity to get on one’s career. For example, I am the Goethe Institut director in Barcelona. I give the rhythm for works and activities. When I was in Munich, I was one of the team; I had an unchangeable work calendar, a very busy agenda full of meetings. I fell like a big machine in a too little room. Here in Barcelona, I plan my own agenda, my tasks and my meetings.
-Which is the portrait of the German who comes to Spain for working reasons?
-There is no a specific portrait. In my opinion, there are two different groups. The first is made of upper class Germans, who fluently speak many languages, who work or manage companies with businesses all over the world and who have a solid and wide working experience. The other group is the one of young people who come with their enthusiasm but without experience, and most of them work in the hotel sector. This group does not usually stay for a long time, because they live it just as one of their experiences.
-Why Spain and not other country?
-There are some reasons. First, the “working reasons” I explained before; but I must say that job mobility does not only depend on oneself: company directors, in my experience the head office of Goethe Institut of Munich, decide where you can move, and choose among the destinations you selected. I decided to go to Spain and to Barcelona because of the atmosphere created by language, by the character and the attitude of Spanish people and by the way of life. On the other side, also because Barcelona is placed in a “strategic position” from the mobility point of view, due to its good connections with Germany, and it gives me the opportunity to come back to

Goethe Institut is the culture institute of the Federal Republic of Germany and carries out its activities all over the world. It promotes the learning of German language abroad and actively participates in the international cultural exchange. Furthermore, it sponsors the diffusion of a wider image of Germany offering information about cultural, social y political life of this country.

my country very often and visit my mother and my two sons.If I had gone to Argentina or to Santiago de Chile or Australia, I wouldn’t have had this kind of possibilities.
-Speaking about the “come back” to your native city: what happens when you go there?
-The come back is hard because things change while you’re out. The company where you work has changed; if you come back unemployed, you’ll find that companies and labour marked have changed as well, and the way of life, too. The cultural differences points out. You can also fell changes in your family and among your friends. But all these changes are quite easy to be accepted by someone who is used to move, maybe because of the “adaptability virtue” that runs into the veins of who has lived in many places.
-Do you know EURES?
-Eu..res..no..
-Let me explain: it’s the European Job Mobility Portal..
-I haven’t heard about it but it sounds interesting. Sometimes official organizations don’t advertise enough about the useful tools they develop. They should present them to big companies, embassies,..
-Do you believe Europe is ready for mobility?
-The idea we have about Europe, yes. Most of the health systems are compatibles; EURO made things easier, and bureaucracy systems are complicated but compatibles. I believe that moving to new member countries is more difficult, maybe because of the little knowledge people have about them.
-Which is your next destination?
-Buenos Aires, London,.. There is not a preferred destination.

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