This question is for people living in small countries in Europe (examples would be but are not limited to Malta, Montenegro, Liechtenstein, Andorra, San Marino etc.) In other words small states such as city-states, microstates, or states the size of a small province.
Now, what are some problems an expat or immigrant would face in such a country?
Points to think of would be: a small population where everyone knows everyone and there is no public anonymity. Or there might be a village community mentality where people’s personal lives are all public and there is a lot of shaming and judging and ostracising of people who do not conform to the norm. Or the country is so small, there is no way to go for a long drive. Or there might not be any wilderness areas without people. You get the idea.
EDIT: Dependencies, like Faroe Islands, Aland, Azores, Jersey are included in the definition as well.
18 comments
I’m not from any of those places but I have friends who have worked in Malta and Lichtenstein. In the case of Malta, they told me corruption, dirty money, mafia, and a dodgy police force are big problems for society. More specific to my friend though was the constant heat, homes that are cold in winter and being “stuck” on the island. Getting stuff delivered from overseas could be expensive and time consuming. A lack of variety in supermarkets.
For Lichtenstein, my other friend was less specific. He worked there but lived in Switzerland. In general, it’s very conservative, the Prince controls too much, it’s damn expensive, things open/close at weird times. The place could be dead at certain days/times but it has the perk of being able to leave easily and go to the surrounding countries!
Going to have to hold you up there and exclaim that Montenegro is in no way shape or form a city-state. I wouldn’t group it in with the other 4 even though it’s relatively small.
Don’t forget to also include crown dependencies like Jersey or Gibraltar, or autonomous regions like the Azores or Åland as well, and like what u/AnimalsNotFood said it’s a similar issues those as well.
Andorra is an odd one.
Some Spanish celebrities have moved there in order to save on taxes, including some famous YouTubers/Streamers.
However, it doesn’t offer much more. Salaries are in general very low, while cost of life is considerably high even with the lower taxes. People travel to La Seu d’Urgell for grocery shopping because it is cheaper than in Andorra. Oh, and it may take you like 20 years to obtain their nationality if you move there.
There’s limited business opportunities as well, and operating an international company from there is hard, for example there’s obligation to hire Andorran staff, so imagine finding people capable in a mountain city of 80,000 inhabitants, plus the geography doesn’t make it easy to create industry there, there’s basically no offices being build, etc. Companies are mostly a single-person entity. Andorran banks have also very low rating. Imports and exports are also very complicated, which makes any sort of e-commerce a nightmare. That’s why you never hear about companies with address there as opposed to Malta, Cyprus, etc.
I’m not living in either, but I have been to some of them and while some of your points may or may not be valid, but the ones about getting in a car and go are not!
Except for Montenegro all the mentioned states are in the Schengen area, that means people can just get in a car and go for a long drive across the border if they want to (no passport control or visa required)! Malta is a bit of a special case because it’s an island, so you can’t drive, but you can get on a plane and fly to any other country in the Schengen area.
On the case of Montenegro, while it is a “small” country, it’s so much bigger than the others you have mentioned, you can definitely go out in the countryside and find a spot with no other people near by, if that’s what you want. The population density of Montenegro is very low. Montenegro is almost ***50*** times bigger than Malta!
Andorra is in the middle of the mountains, plenty of nice spots in the country or just across the border in Spain or France.
Liechtenstein has mountains too, but across the borders in Switzerland or Austria there are even more.
San Marino is a small town on the top of a hill surrounded by fields… But if you are bored by the people there, you get in a car and go to Italy.
well, living in San Marino is just like living in any other italian town
I’m currently working in Luxemburg🇱🇺, not a city state, but definitely small. 60% of the entire country is foreign, and 70% of Luxemburg city. On the tram I hardly hear Luxembourgish, but mostly French, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, German, English and so forth. 50% does not have a Luxembourgish passport.
Because the country is so small and living in it is so expensive, 200k people live either in Germany, Belgium or France and cross the border everyday. 600k people live in Luxembourg, so the country gains 1/3 of its population between 9 and 5.
This really shows as well in Luxembourg city, the capital and really the only city in Luxembourg if you don’t count 28k as a city. Luxembourg city has 112k inhabitants, but it shows way bigger (I lived in 2 other 100k city’s). This is mainly because all the people coming from the country side and other countries to work everyday.
This also means there are big traffic jams almost daily from all directions. Luxembourg also didn’t close its borders during covid, although this doesn’t help much if the neighbouring countries do.
Although it is a very small country, the nature is very diverse, beautiful and spread out.
I know a guy who lived in Liechtenstein for a while: it’s basically exactly the same as living in Switzerland as far as everyday stuff is concerned (excluding rent maybe)
I think that for this reason (at least some) Swiss joke about Liechtenstein being the 27th Canton of Switzerland.
Where it gets more complicated is if you wanna get the citizenship.
Same goes for San Marino and Italy and Monaco and France (here without the “maybe” on the rent part – it’s much more expensive because rich people drive up the prices by moving there to avoid taxes)
Happy to chip in about my time in Jersey. Was out last night with a friend, and at some point we were looking at a map and I realised how small it is.
So, problems for an expat/immigrant there, from my POV.
The renting market. There is a “tier” system of who is eligible to rent which homes. Locals /“entitled” are at the top, then the qualified/“licensed” people – those with in demand skills though in practice entitled and qualified is roughly the same. Then there’s everyone else/“registered”. The latter has the fewest choice with the quality ranging from decent to terrible, but with rent being at London levels. If you move to Jersey without a professional qualification, you‘ll likely be registered.
Small population: if you’re single and lonely, finding someone might be tricky if say, you don’t habitually go to the pub, or aren’t comfortable hitting on coworkers. Tinder *barely* works there, dries up too quickly, and Bumble and others just has no one.
Rules and regs: in practice it’s in line with the UK but that makes it all the more easier to forget that Jersey is technically its own thing. Which is a hassle if you want to travel back and forth and lockdowns happen, for instance. Or ordering online and you have to deal with Jersey customs, not HMRC. Or that you have to file income tax returns (I left but I still have to do mine for last year), or that shops open and close at different times, speaking of which.
Shops: their opening times are suited to a traditional husband and wife i.e. husband works, wife maintains the home and buys stuff. During weekdays shops tend to close by 5 or 6pm (if you’re lucky), on Saturdays they can be open til about 5, or are closed. On Sundays, almost everything but the supermarkets are shut.
Small island: if you’re not a fan of the beach or the nature in Jersey well tough. There’s only so much biodiversity in 45sqkm of land.
Food: can be very difficult if you’re trying to source non local stuff. Choice of restaurants? Amusingly, many Thai places, but not much else in terms of Asian cuisine.
Things to see and do: ehhhhhhhh, do you like clubbing and pubbing? No? Fuck you!
“Claustrophobia”: difficult to describe, but it is something a non local may feel when staying here for too long. Especially if lockdowns happen and oups, cannot travel home. One may experience a feeling of being “hemmed in” or trapped.
We’re not a city-state, we are a collection of small villages with a strong localized agrarian background (and the capital of course). All I can say is:
1. Brain drain – the best won’t stay confined in 64 square km
2. Nepotism – family (but not only) connections will always be more important than actual skills and competence. Add unemployment and the cocktail gets even more toxic
3. Rigid mentality – people love the world “open minded”, yet from how they speak when contradicted you may think it doesn’t really mean what they think it means….
4. Crippled democracy – “knowing each other” can backfire horribly, even more with a compromised judiciary system
5. Wild urbanization – lack of regulation have deeply damaged the landscape, now we are full of abandoned buildings where could have been a park or some wood. Not mentioning pollution
6. Water reserves – droughts are a scourge and without major water bodies it is hard to counter them. This may be the 7th year of summer rationing
7. Undifferentiated economy – we are no Switzerland, we are no Monaco, the recent debt crisis has shown that you can’t run a country on offshoring and tourism only
8. Cultural negligence – you may think a small country is more invested in preserving its small heritage and landscapes. Oh how much you are wrong…
9. International irrelevance – this may have saved us in the past, yet this come with a price, like getting less opportunities than your friend who at least got double citizenship
Yet I still enjoy the balanced green spaces (at least the few left), the bound with our agrarian past (I was born in a quite “Hobbitish” family) and most of all safety. At least I can walk around in the night without the fear of getting assaulted, robbed or worse.
I have known somebody who emigrated, and then left, San Marino. The biggest problems he cited were a very slow-moving culture that doesn’t allow much personal expression and barely acknoledges its lesser groups, the reasoning being “we’ve been doing for centuries without it, why complicate your life?”, an economy that was based on being a tax haven and being relatively cheaper than Italy (that ultimately did leave them flat on their asses when they abandoned banking secrecy), and lack of a real identity betond “we have been around for a really long time as a republic”.
Lived in Monaco for a while, and worked in Luxemburg.
Downside: Its fairly expensive and regardless how much you make, you always feel poor.
Upside: amazing money, friendly and clean. Police staff is helpfull, when you understand how things work.
I live in Luxembourg. The country isn’t a city-state but rather on the higher end of what qualifies as a European microstate or rather small-state. The country is wealthy and overall live is great. However it’s becoming ever more expensive here and real estate prices are immensely high.
Another result of the countries size is also that it’s incredibly multicultural. I consider it a real benefit and to most coming into the country to live here, it’s probably as well. Talking three languages is par for the course and most speak more. The country also has way more cultural diversity then one would expect given it’s size.
All around Luxembourg is pretty great but incredibly expensive. It’s also absolutely reliant on the EU. If the union were to ever break apart this country would probably suffer the most from it.
They’re just parasites to actual countries.
Source: my taxes fund a foreign state
I’m from Jersey.
* Jersey is quite easy to move to, but you will not have housing qualifications for 10(?) years. First 5 years you need to find housing in categories that will allow “registered” people. After 5 you can rent qualified housing. After 10 you can buy. After 30 you can gain permanent/entitled, which means you can’t loose it.
* Even if you get to the point where you can buy, good luck affording housing here. Its starting to get very crowded, we are running out of space and services like schools are struggling. People born in Jersey are now the minority and most people born in Jersey have parents from the UK or Portugal/Madeira.
* Jersey people are often called “beans” colloquially. People born in Jersey, who have Jersey parents and all Jersey grandparents have a funny situation which we call “The Bean Stamp”. This is when they have a British passport, as they are British citizens, but never had the same access to freedom of movement or freedom of work in the EU like British citizens of the UK had. Thinking pre-Brexit here.
* It’s super comfortable to live if you aren’t being ripped apart by housing/living costs. However it’s small. 120km^(2). 100,000+ people. There is no wilderness left. Small pockets of greenery and protected places to explore, but it’s mostly a few coastal spots. It’s hard to get away from other people and find a quiet area as all the quiet areas are full of other people looking for quiet areas.
* With low tax (20% + social) and a tax cap meaning if you can pay £150K max contribution per year, you don’t need to pay any more, the island has a lot of rich buggers. Really rich buggers. Compare that with a lot of immigrants or working people without even housing qualifications who live in glorified bedsits throwing most of their income at it, the wealth inequality here is high. You only have stand by a road in town for a few minutes to see someone with a registration plate on their car worth more than peoples entire net-worth.
Montenegro is small, but not a city state. I mean, although it is dependent on its neighbors for trade and most of the stuff is imported, even regular everyday items like milk, it still is quite functional and has all the institutions necessary. I would say the worst part of it being so small is concerning the educational system. The university in Podgorica is definitely at a low level compared to Serbian universities. That is why there are a lot of students form Montenegro here in Serbia.
I’ve spoken to quite a few of Montenegrins here and everyone tells the same story. Who is excelling at school either tries to go to EU universities or to Serbian ones as the latter ones are free for them, and offer a much better education than back home.
Andorra is not a city state. At most, a valley state. There are seven municipalities (parishes), and a total of about 80 000 people. If you really think there can be no wilderness, [take a look at this](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Andorra/@42.5166806,1.5872131,1827m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x12a5f52e989ef095:0x7c93ed778ea7f92!8m2!3d42.506285!4d1.521801?hl=ca)
Tbh I dont even know why Aland is part of Finland; if it were up to me, I would sell it to Sweden and be done with it.
Aland is part of Finland, however much Alanders try to orotedt against it. It is a demilitarised zone, which also means that its residents do not have to complete military service (good luck when Russia invades them, I guess?). Aland is not part of the EU customs union, so anything that is sent there or through there has to be processed the same way as coming from a ”third country” like the US. This means they benefit from tax free sales of goods on ferries that pass through/stop there between Finland and Sweden.
Aland is very hostile to the mainland and is entirely Swedish speaking, blocking any use of Finnish language, even extending to private businesses and citizens. There are restrictions on owning property as a non Alander and other restrictions on residency. Despite their autonomy, Alanders are still EU citizens and get all of those benefits too, plus being supported by mainlander tax payers; the definition of having your cake and eating it too. Lets cut the cord and see how well they do on their own (spoiler; they wouldnt).