We're repeatedly told we have more hotel rooms than there is real demand for and that we can't carry more. But if that's the case, why are still so many hotels getting built?

We learn about the need now to improve the quality of the tourists who arrive. Perhaps that's why more hotels are being built - to create a new hotel stock of  high quality accomodation. But if that's the case, why is there so much new building being put up or housing stock which is being converted to hotel space, including for hostels?

Quite correctly, it's recently been said that the tourism authority functions to promote tourism, which hardly makes it suited to regulate as well the sector and prevent it from expanding "haphazardly". There should be, for tourism, a mechanism to run promotion and another separate one to supervise and regulate. We have learnt this lesson in such sectors as industry, financial services and communication. It's rather odd that it's never been carried over into tourism.

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MATTERS OF JUSTICE

Traditionally, the legal profession has had the highest proportion of representatives in Parliament. One would therefore have expected that in the administration of justice, the arising problems and challenges  would have been given priority, whether they occurred on a day-to-day basis or were strategic and long term in nature. It hasn't happened like so. All those active in this area seem to accept that the drive to improve matters is insufficiently effective or seems to have stalled.

Such a conclusion continues to find support in the almost contradictory information that is provided. For instance regarding how - relative to the population of other European countries - we have the least number of judges and magistrates. But the news from the law courts is that there still aren't enough court spaces available to cope with the requirements of judges. While substantial funds have been expended in recent years for the administration of the courts, there still is also a substantial lack of trained people and adequate equipment that could allow judges and magistrates to carry out their work effectively...

What has kept the whole system stagnant for so long?

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UKRAINE IN THE EU

Some EU members have been pressurizing the EU now for quite a while to open up as soon as possible the doors for the Ukraine to become a full member of the EU - in line with that country's lobbying. It's difficult to understand why this should be done, given that for the Balkan countries (not to mention Turkey) the option of a fast road to membership has over time, been put back year after year.

Surely the same reasons should apply to the Ukraine as has been done for them, mostly because of how its economic and social legislation and practices still need to be aligned with those of the EU. The pressures for the Ukraine to make a fast "entry" in the EU is meant as a form of response to Russian agression. Still it would be a huge mistake were EU membership for the Ukraine to serve as another initiative designed to put pressure on Russia.

Before EU membership is made subject to serious negotiations, it would be best first to wait till the war between Russia and the Ukraine is over - for many reasons.