Well if the spanish 'Doctorate' finishes with a PhD then the Diplome is not ~ a Doctorate. Usually, starting from a German Diplome, it will take another 3 years to get the PhD. I know quite a few highly qualified spanish PhD guys who have definitely spent more than the time for a German Diplome thesis on their PhD work;-)
This is going a lot offtopic...
I expressed myself badly, and you are very right. My sister has a Computers PhD, and true, it took almost 3 years to get it. I'm her somewhat stupid younger brother, so I'm a Computers Licenciate, that's what you get after finishing the six years career. I think there isn't an equivalent or the German Diplome here, although the Grade Licenciate could serve as an approximation (after presenting a 'Career Final Work').
As you were expressing the Dimplome as 'high level', I thought you were meaning 'thesis and PhD'.
About your meeting with Spanish PhD's I'm not wondering how, and I bet most of them live and work on Germany too, because our government doesn't support 'science' in the standard sense; the call 'high technology' to the selling of mobile phones by private companies and the purchase of computers to play Internet at home (of course not in schools, this would imply the waste of public funds), and 'good bussiness' to the development of entertainment TV shows as 'Big Brother'. If you want to work in Science (capitalized) there is little room here, unless you fund yourself.
Very offtopic again, but this conversation awakened a lot of worry about the sad state of things here...
), but I pictured the general frame... Spain is almost the European country investing less percentage on research, and our productivity rate is in the level of developing countries. Nothing to improve on this, as 'Spain goes well', as our PM Aznar says. They are seeking to implant a private 'bussiness model' in our universities, as a new law is pointing to. The general goal is *not* to spend government funds in 'nonprofit' activities, such as Science (although it's demonstrated a lot of times it's the best long-term monetary rewarded investment always).
