On May 9 and 10, at 4 pm, the audience will have the opportunity to watch all the video clips of the songs that will participate in the contest.

The finals will take place on May 18 and 26 countries will participate. Five of the 26 countries, the Big Five (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and United Kingdom), as well as the organizer country Sweden, will participate directly in the finals. The countries’ order of appearance during the finals will be announced by the organizers no later than May 17.

Every country can vote only in the semi-finals where its song will compete. During the finals, all countries that participate in the Eurovision song contest have the right to vote. The points of every country result from a tele-voting and a jury, 50-50. The audience has the right to vote any of the songs, except for their own participation.

Since 1956, the Eurovision Song Contest is Europe’s favorite TV show. After more than five decades featuring some 1,100 songs, the contest has become a modern classic, strongly embedded in Europe’s collective mind. In 2005, Europe celebrated the 50th anniversary of its favorite TV show, according to Eurovision’s website.

They discussed about the development of common activities as well as the exchange of know-how. They both expressed their common will to strengthen bilateral relations in the tourist sector which will prove beneficial.

Both sides agreed to promote the program, City Break in Autumn, in Athens and Stockholm. They also discussed the tourist campaigns of the Greek Tourism Organization (EOT) and the Swedish organization, Visit Sweden. A special reference was made to the use of social media and their role in attracting tourists. Sweden has already launched innovative campaigns using social media and especially twitter.

Kefalogianni underlined to Bruhk that, “For Greece, Sweden is a very important market that we wish to develop even further, as Swedish belong to the category of quality visitors.”

During her visit, Kefalogianni also held meetings with representatives of tour operators, with whom she discussed in detail the perspectives of the development of new types of tourism, like activities and sports tourism in which the Swedish seem to be particularly interested.

The Liseberg company, located in Gothenburg has distributed posters and has published on its central website, an advertisement showing the picture of a boy crying, accompanied by the text: “Some children are forced to go to Crete in summer –  Guaranteed cheerful kids in our Liseberg park”.

The Chania Hoteliers Association noticed this advertising campaign and organized a protest to the Swedish Embassy in Athens. The Association sent a letter of complaint to the Swedish ambassador in Athens.

The letter was also communicated to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and to the Minister of Tourism, Olga Kefalogianni, who will go to Sweden on April 25 in an effort to enhance the tourist flow to Greece for the coming summer.

During her stay, Kefalogianni will address the event, Greece in our hearts, where Lena Liljeroth, the Swedish Minister of Culture is going to participate. The Greek Tourism Minister will hold meetings with senior executives of big travel agencies and with representatives of airline companies. She is also going to give interviews to major media in order to enhance the image of Greece in the tourism market in Sweden.

The president of the Chania Hoteliers Association told Flashnews.gr: “We understand that the specific company wants to attract customers, but not with such methods. In a letter it stated that, “As Hoteliers Association of Southern Chania, representing the most important destination of Swedish people, we are complaining about this unacceptable action of this amusement park and we ask your help, in order to stop immediately this defamation. It is known that the bonds between Greece and Sweden, and especially regarding Crete and Chania, are very strong and in any case such malicious actions should not affect the relations between the people of the two countries. We ask you to take direct action on this issue.”

The visit was part of a school students’ project to interview the mayor and ask him about the economic crisis and the problems it is causing for municipalities and residents.

The meeting discussed a wide range of issues, especially the impact of austerity measures on Greek families and everyday life, and the prospects for recovery in the economy, with unemployment at a record 27 percent.

Anastasiadis told the students that a Hellenes Abroad department is to be opened at Lagadas. He invited them to communicate and collaborate not only with the department but also with the Greek community in their homeland.

Hundreds of jobs will be marketed at a special event organized by the country’s employment agency and EURES in the southern city of Malmö next week. The positions include football coaches, choreographers, set designers, animators, sound engineers and dancers at hotels and resorts around the Mediterranean, so as to mainly serve Nordic clients in Spain, Greece, Italy and Cyprus.

“We hope our Swedish youths will get every single one of these jobs. These companies have had good experience of young Swedish workers,” said Kristina Gärdebro Johansson, a European Employment Services (EURES) advisor at the Swedish Public Employment Service. She said some of the jobs require Scandinavian language skills

The youth unemployment rate in Sweden is about 24 percent, less than half that in Greece and Spain, where it is more than 55 percent for those under 25 years old. “This is a great opportunity if you want to enter the job market,” Johansson said

That’s what market research for Sweden’s dairy industry showed, according to the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs of the Greek Embassy in Stockholm.

Feta is mainly imported by immigrant businesses of Greek food stores, while retail distribution comes mainly from Sweden’s large supermarket chains (ICA, COOP, LIDL, etc.).

According to data recorded by Sweden’s Statistic Service, Greece is the country from which the largest quantities of feta are imported and its share in the market continues to grow, reaching 167,238 sek in 2011, compared to 158.089 sek in 2010 and 152,899 sek in 2009.

In 2011, Greece exported three tons of feta, compared to 2.7 in 2010 and 2.6 in 2009. In 2011, 1 euro, on average, was equal to 9.03 sek. During the previous years, the average rate was for 2009: 1 euro = 10,60 SEK, 2010: 1 euro = 9,54 SEK.

Within the list of feta importers in Sweden after Greece, follow Germany, Denmark, Finland and Belgium.

Headed by Mats Brannstrom, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the university of Gothenburg, the team comprised of 20 scientists, doctors and specialists, including world-renowned Greek professor and transplant surgeon Andreas Tzakis.

The team has been working on the project since 1999 and said that they will not consider the surgeries  successful until the two recipients give birth to their own children. According to a university report, the two recipients were well recovering from the surgery and will restart in-vitro fertilization treatment next year, if all goes well.

The first reported womb transplant from a live donor, was performed in 2000 in Saudi Arabia, but a blood clot required for the organ to be removed three months after the surgery. Last year, Turkish doctors said they completed a womb transplant from a deceased donor to a young woman.

His story mirrors that of many Greeks who have fled their homeland in search of jobs, with unemployment in Greece now at a record high of 24.4 percent. Many of have chosen Sweden, but he told Bloomberg the life is not easy and he misses Greece, although he said he detests the politicians he blames for creating the crisis.

Leaving behind their families and friends, their once well-paid jobs and their beloved country, the Greeks are once again experiencing the harsh times of the 1950’s when mass waves of desperate Greeks were traveling the world in search of a better future.

Karachalios had been working for 17 years as a pharmaceutical salesman. “It was a very good job. Now I clean Swedish s—,” he said. He left his 6-year-old daughter back in Greece with his parents, while he still receives money from them whenever his salary is not paid on time.

Even after losing his pharmaceutical job, he didn’t give up on Greece. He said he worked as a telemarketer but was left unpaid for months. Then he thought of moving to Australia but Sweden turned out to be a more low-cost solution to his problems. “I knew they were very organized. Everyone pays their taxes and it’s fair. There is no cheating.” he said.

Things did not turn quite as expected for the Greek expatriate but he still is grateful for having a job at all. “I was doing something more glamorous but I don’t mind this work. I feel alive again. When you are unemployed too long, it’s very hard. I was angry all the time.”

Living now in a studio for which he pays 524 euros, or $670 per month – in a building with many other immigrants – when Karachalios is not tired from work he spends his evenings trying to learn Swedish. Because he doesn’t know the language, he has been unable to find a better-paying job in the health care sector he knows.

Karachalios said if he doesn’t find a permanent job, he may move to Shanghai with his daughter, where his ex-wife, a Chinese woman he met at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, now lives. Bitter with Greek politicians and suggesting that Germany and France crippled Greece to take hold of the oil reserves in the Aegean, Karachalios is not the only Greek immigrant going through harsh times.

Ourania Michtopoulou and her family also moved to the northern country to escape the crashing reality of their country. “Here, I can hope for something good to happen. Maybe not for me — I’m 48 — but maybe for my children,” she told Bloomberg.

More and more young people – despite their university degrees and qualifications – are forced to leave Greece, where the jobless rate for those under 25 is now 54.9 percent. Families are reorganizing their monthly expenses to make ends meet, while elderly people cannot even pay for their medicines anymore. Companies and businesses are shutting down day-by-day, while taxation and cuts in salaries and pensions never cease.

After two years of pay cuts, tax hikes and slashed pensions demanded by international lenders as a condition of lifeline loans, the average salary fell 23 percent in Greece to $1,400 a month, but many people – those still working – are making far less, creating continued desperation and despair, and forcing many – like Karachalios and Michtopoulou – to leave the land they said they still love, but where they can’t find work.

”We have a lack of engineers here; there are not enough university-trained engineers in Sweden to cover the demand,” Peter Karancsi, of the European Job Mobility Portal EURES told Sveriges Radio (SR,) which added that nearly 100 Greek physicians have received licenses in Sweden so far this year, more than from any other European Union country outside Scandinavia.

“I have a better chance for getting a job here than in Greece,” electrical engineer Charis Katsakakis, just arrived from Athens, told the broadcaster. And despite being a recent graduate and not knowing any Swedish, his prospects of finding work in Sweden are good, Karancsi told SR. “Many of the larger Swedish companies have trainee-schemes and also recruit for the future and there is a great chance of being accepted to these, even if you don’t speak fluent Swedish,“ he told SR.

However, for those without specialized knowledge, the situation is quite different. “Everything felt hopeless in Greece, but it is no better here. And then I’d rather go home,” Vladimiros Pavlides, 25, told SR. He came to Sweden last autumn but has so far only managed to find a part-time job as a cleaner. According to SR, the free movement over EU borders makes little difference when the labor market climate for those without specialized expertise is a lot tougher.

Source: www.thelocal.se

Komninos Chaideftos

As the economic crisis intensifies in Greece, the number of Greeks coming to Sweden in search of housing and jobs has soared, a leader of the Scandinavian country’s Greek community said Tuesday.
“It looks like there will be double the number of Greeks coming this year as last year,” Komninos Chaideftos, the head of the National Greek Federation in Stockholm, told AFP, noting that more than one million people are now officially unemployed in Greece.

According to the Swedish Migration Board, the number of Greeks granted residence permits more than doubled between 2010 and 2011, from 371 to 767, and appeared set to rise even higher this year, with 400 registered by June 1st.

As European Union citizens, Greeks can spend three months in Sweden without a residence permit, but after that they need to show they have a job or a way to support themselves to be granted legal residence.

“There are many, many more Greeks who have not been able to get a residence permit than those who have,” Chaideftos said, adding that the situation would certainly worsen further after the summer when the seasonal tourism jobs in Greece evaporate.

Already, he said, his organization was seeing homeless Greeks in Sweden. “This is the first time we’ve seen these kinds of Greeks, regular people, not substance abusers, ending up homeless in Sweden,” he said, adding that many young people desperate to find work were ending up on the streets.

“I have been in touch with around 50,” he said.  The problem, Chaideftos said, was that Greeks back home were desperate and willing to believe in a myth that Sweden was an easy country to get by in. “They have this idea that Sweden is a place where you can easily find work and housing,” he said, noting that his organisation had set up a working group aimed at informing Greeks back home and in Sweden about the way things actually work in the Scandinavian country.
“I mean, finding housing in Stockholm especially is a huge problem even for people who already live here,” Chaideftos said, adding that many highly educated Greeks were unable to land jobs they were qualified for and were instead getting stuck performing poorly paid unskilled labor.
“These people can’t pay 10,000 kronor ($1,400) for a small one-bedroom apartment when they’re making 30 to 40 kronor an hour,” he said.

His organization has also recently started Swedish classes for Greeks who do not have residence permits and are therefore not entitled to the free classes offered by Swedish municipalities, in a bid to help them enter society and find work.
(source: AFP)