Welcome to Tiny Liberland, the World's Newest Country
A Czech man has just founded a new country in Europe and its constitution is the envy of the rest of the world’s inhabitants.
Just like Portugal’s charming Renato Barros bought a little island and proclaimed himself sovereign king before the UN, a Czech gentleman has bought a terra nullius between Serbia and Croatia and named himself president of his small but promising no-man’s land, which he has called Liberland.
His name is Vit Jedlicka, he is 31 and a former member of the Citizens’ Conservative Party in the Czech Republic. His country, which is 2.7 square miles in size, is very close to what could be a social and political utopia: taxes are optional, there is no military service and it “does not intervene with the two states that surround it.” On its website, which is adorable, he shares its unique constitution: The country’s motto is: “To live and let live.”
The objective of the founders of the new state is to build a country where honest people can prosper without being oppressed by governments making their lives unpleasant through the burden of unnecessary restrictions and taxes. But now it’s really turning out to be a real project with real support.
According to the president of Liberland, so far the project has received 20,000 requests for citizenship. You can find the guidelines to request it on the website; all you need to do is send an email telling something about yourself. (you don’t need a CV or a steady job).
“We have the busiest immigration office in the world”, Jedlicka joked about his team of seven volunteers. At the end of the process, he says, he will accept between 3,000 and 5,000 people who combine with his constitution and who have something to contribute to the newly founded nation.
Who would have imagined that there are still no-man’s lands, that there are still political loopholes between frontiers, that we are so fed up with our governments that we set out to find corners of the world where we can abolish everything that clearly does not work and give rise to a new rallying cry: “Live and let live.”
Liberland is a peaceful country, and if Serbia and Croatia object to it, Jedlicka says he would raise a “peaceful defense.” So far he is still awaiting a diplomatic response from those two countries, but his utopia is up and running. There is no doubt that crating a micro-nation is a worthwhile exercise and there are various serious organizations that can tell you how to do it.
Between Renato Barros, sovereign of the Principality of Pontinha, and Vit Jedlicka, President of Liberland, a powerful window is opening that had been canceled out to the world. It was about time for all of us.
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