I'm West-Flemish myself and still live here, but I also get my share of snarky remarks of blogging in English or reading stuff primary in English. If you have a website with some text in Dutch and you make a spelling mistake then you will certainly get (angry) mails about it. Or when you use an English word instead of a Dutch, for some that is another capital offence.
If that sounds ridiculous keep in mind we have people proverbial running after busses and filling complaints when the bus company dares to advertise something with English words in it.
Ans seeing how many Dutch related contests Flemish participants win, I have sometimes the feeling that we are better in Dutch than our neighbours in the Netherlands. So yeah the Dutch language is really important in this part of the world.
For some things I can see the benefits of being able to promote (or even force) the local language. I'm personally convinced that from a social POV it helps when your neighbour understands you and speaks the same languages.
But on the other hand in the global age we are living we shouldn't overestimate the importance of it. It sometimes depresses me if I see how much energy gets lost in those kind of discussions.
The people were very nice (like, almost Hot Fuzz nice :-D), probably why the few who berated my Dutch speaking abilities stood out :-)
Fortunately a lot of people don't mind if you aren't fluent in it as they value the effort more then being 100% correct. And those who react hostile just don't understand how difficult the language is. Hell even natives have sometimes problems with all the grammatical rules the Dutch language has!
Hot fuzz is really one of my favourite movies, then again I'm a bit of an anglophile regarding movies/series/... . :-) I lived btw also in Blankenberge for 12 years and born in Bruges. Nowadays I live at the other end of West Flanders.
West-Flanders is actually (almost) Dutch only, not a lot of IT in here and a lot of agricultre. I don't mind, but i suppose a lot of older people ( who don't know english) could have a hard time having a conversation with you :)
Where did you live?
How come? Just no interest? Don't like it?
So it's worth a shot. Looks like we could use more programmers here.
Only requirement is to get job offer with enough salary.
But in this case, to work legally, he'd need a work visa as you say, which I imagine is even harder to get?
There are some societal problems with xenophobia and racism though. Probably affects Muslims the most. Avoidable by going to a major city like Berlin or Hamburg.
Work visas are generally only issued if you already have an offer. Which is hard to get unless you're in the country...
In southern Germany, engineering jobs have been difficult to find for my expat friends that don't know German. "Sehr gute kenntnisse auf Deutsch / Englisch" accompanies most any listing.
As RowanH suggested above. Have a look at www.seek.co.nz
In short, you only have to get job offer to relocate to Sweden.
They didn't even check my employment history.
So western countries get more high qualified people like me and my friends.
Putin motivate high qualified people to find a job in Europe :)
And as everybody agree in 21 century, high qualified people is everything for growing economy.
Basically, you need to get a job offer from a company in Sweden with a competitive ("normal") salary, and you are in.
IF your line of work is on the shortage list, such as IT work.