Meanwhile, back in Brussels, the EESC’s Labour Market Observatory was meeting under the chairmanship of Krzysztof Pater (Various Interests Group, Poland) and was honoured to host Belgian employment minister Joëlle Milquet who had come to help the Observatory elucidate on the paradox of companies encountering difficulties in filling their vacant posts in a time of high, even very high, unemployment. Such labour market inefficiencies are deeply frustrating phenomena but admit of no easy solutions.