Free State project in Europe

You have probably heard of the Free State Project — a great idea by some American libertarians, who, having understood that there are too few of them to cause meaningful change in the entire US, decided to focus their efforts in the state of New Hampshire in order to achieve their goals through small victories on the local level.

As usual, we have decided to keep pace with and overtake our American colleagues, and launch our very own European Free State Project. Although the main drive behind this project is coming from people living in Eastern Europe, we hope that it will gain support far beyond its borders. For obvious reasons, a project like this in our homeland countries is not likely to survive: the governments are too big, centralized and not always democratic or open to innovation. In some of them, such attempts will not only be too laborious and, probably, useless in the face of entrenched interests, but, given the insanity of the political climate, may even be subject to criminal prosecution,

To us, disputed territories and secession movements are also unworkable, since we don’t wish to earn ourselves the label of criminals or place ourselves outside the legal sphere. Not to mention the possibility of ethnic conflicts on the grounds of separatism. While respecting the right of people to determine their own fate, we think this process will go considerably faster if we can do it through productive action on the ground, within a jurisdiction. If we get it right, we’ll show the world that a small European country can become a wellspring of wealth and entrepreneurship like Hong Kong or Singapore, and perhaps even overcome them.

The country we chose for this purpose is Montenegro, due its numerous unique advantages:

• A very small population (only 600,000), which makes it much easier to promote the ideas of freedom than if it were a country of millions or tens of millions.
• Unlike many other small countries, Montenegro lies on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It has commercial and passenger ports, which enable it to have direct access to the global market and will result in a faster unfolding of its business potential.
• Unlike Malta, another micronation, Montenegro lies on the European continent and is connected to other countries by rail. With the right institutional changes, it can become a duty-free zone for all of Europe.
• Unlike Monaco, Montenegro is a parliamentary republic which is open to migration, both of which make it an open access order and increase the chances that libertarian sympathizers will be able to integrate into the society and work to make it better.
• Unlike in the Baltic States, the Montenegrin people are not a majority in their own country and aren’t likely to build a closed ethno-nationalist state, which improves the prospects of foreigners coming in and assimilating into the society.
• Unlike Georgia, Montenegro has no territorial disputes with its neighbors. This means there is no threat of revanchist or nationalistic tendencies, which are highly toxic for open societies oriented to world integration.
• Montenegro remains one of the cheapest countries in Europe to visit and live in, next to Poland and Ukraine. Its location makes it cheap and accessible for both Western and Eastern European visitors.
• Unlike states or autonomous regions, Montenegro already has sovereignty, and has much more freedom in determining its own course.
• Montenegro is a full NATO member and a EU member candidate. It is protected by the most powerful military alliance on the planet, and is preparing to enter one of the largest single markets in the world, which are good for the secure and free trade a business environment needs to flourish. This makes Eurosceptics wary of meddling from Brussels. However, even if the European Union doesn’t reform by the time Montenegro enters it, EU law has existing, if limited, mechanisms for implementing free market reforms, and Montenegro’s negotiating position will depend on whether it really can, with our help, become the European Hong Kong.

Apart from the above arguments in favour of Montenegro, there are three reasons why we need to move now, and not yesterday or tomorrow:

1. For a long time Montenegro remained under a relatively authoritarian regime, but at the end of 2020 the ruling coalition of Social-democrats (direct descendants of the communist party) lost elections to a more tame centrist coalition, one of whose parties, for instance, is called «The world is our nation.» While we can argue which of the competing groups is more market-oriented, the fact of real political competition is favourable to further political conversation and change in Montenegro.
2. The worldwide pandemic has decimated the tourism industry, and Montenegro was one of the hardest hit. This resulted in a 10-30% decrease in real estate prices and will possibly even force politicians to look at alternative ways to diversify the economy and create a more favourable investment climate. Even if not, the decrease in real estate costs is good for us, and isn’t likely to last after the pandemic.
3. This project is not some abstract theory, but is already being realized by the first pioneers who have moved and began to naturalize in Montenegro. Unlike many other beautiful plans of conquering the Universe, we have nowhere to fall back and are already realizing our ideas in practice.

It is impossible to say how exactly we will see this movement through to success. Some are moving to Montenegro simply to retire, others to start their own business, others still prefer to teach and spread the ideas. We are united by our values of freedom, our respect for national sovereignty, and our love for this small mountainous country, whose norms and laws we also respect. All of us are here to realize our ideas exclusively through peaceful and legal means.

If you share our goals and the main principles of this project, or you have additional questions or comments, we invite you to join the project’s public Telegram chat.