Italy

Hello,
in fact, from my point of view, the administrative part is always a nighmare when you start living abroad.
In my case, I am an Spanish Marie Curie Postdotoral Fellow in France. All the administrative processes you have to do to work in a Research Institute in France is horrible: when you go to a congress or something like that you need also sign too much forms; getting the "carte vital" is even worse (at least 6 month to get it, which means that if you fall ill in this period you need to fill in two millions of documents).
And, what about to find an appartment... they ask you so many things when you are a foreigner that you get desperated.
So, it is not a real question of the country. I think there are still too many things to improve in the EU to manage a real movility between the cityzen of the member countries.

Pilar

I agree with Pilar. I have moved 4 times in the last 13 years and you just have to deal with it.

In the modern world, especially now because of increasing austerity, it is demanded that young people be mobile and flexible. Unfortunately few of the procedures of real-life politics share this flexibility. Through mobility we gain experience, knowledge and contacts, but mobility has a cost. Various countries have over long years built up systems for renting apartments, health care, pensions etc. that are supposedly based on the interests of the permanent population of those countries. This is fair enough. Transient workers from other countries are not a priority, particularly now at a time when austerity will reduce whatever benefits are available.

In general, the countries that work well for their own citizens are also better for visiting scientists. Countries that have complicated systems where political influence (soft corruption) is needed to deal with the system work badly for everybody apart from a small well-connected minority. In Europe, we need real democracy. Growing up in Ireland in the 1980s, it was common to approach members of parliament to ask for help to apply for various government services that most capable people can apply for themselves without help. Some people see this as an example of hard-working politicians, I would describe it as clientelism. My wife studied in Denmark for a semester. Denmark seemed to deal with such administrative issues very well.

My institute here in Germany organises furnished apartments for visiting students. I was looking for accomodation for a visitor and asked a retired colleague about an apartment she rents out and she said it wouldn't be practical for her to keep the apartment available for someone who may only remain there for a short time. Fortunately there is a local cooperative organisation that rents out apartments that has a surplus of accomodation. It is not very high quality but available. In cities, where accomodation is hard to find, it is difficult but not impossible to host visiting scientists. The secretary of the institute has to be a very active and efficient person. We rely on such people when we move to foreign countries that we don't know very well.

I find out that even to re-establish in France after a Marie Curie IEF is difficult: to get a health coverage, you are asked to work 60 hours in one month. How is that possible for researchers you are usually on the move to attend training and conferences or do research stay, and that are expected to be applying for projects or stipendium in other countries? This is my case now. I have an application pending for which I will get an answer only in a few months, and cannot register with the French health system (although I am French), because I am now covered by Italy until next year, although my job in Italy has ended. Europe anyone?