This afternoon I had a catch-up session with the EESC President, Staffan Nilsson. He has been extraordinarily busy over the past two weeks, representing the Committee in Paris, at the French Economic, Social and Environmental Council’s formal meeting with the new President, François Hollande; in Rio, at the EU-Brazil Round Table, the General Assembly of the International Association of Economic and Social Councils and Similar Institutions and at the Rio + 20 talks themselves; then in Moscow, at the Fifth Joint Workshop between the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation and the EESC; and finally in Berlin, at the 30th EU-Turkey Joint Consultative Committee meeting. Staffan is indefatigible. This evening he flies home to Sweden, to his farm, and on Sunday he will travel down to Stockholm to join the members of the enlarged Presidency, who on Monday and Tuesday will be holding an extraordinary meeting with Swedish  government representatives and civil society organisations. Just listing all of this has made me a little breathless. Still we caught up on everything before he dashed back to his dairy herd for, yes, when Staffan is not representing the EESC, he is an active farmer…