Now that we have a group of participants, we must begin taking some practical steps. We have to select a country. As I’m sure each of you has a preference, but only one country can win. I hope that whichever country we select, the arguments for it will be so compelling that every one of you stays onboard. To make the process a little easier I have made a matrix, the first one with essential requirements:
Immediately two contenders fall short: although there are a lot of beautiful houses to be had in France and Italy, there are no depopulated villages. That is neither the case in Hungary, Croatia and Serbia, but real estate there is so affordable that you could buy several houses in an existing village. Which is not the concept we have in mind, so I think these countries should also be dropped, but perhaps there are valid arguments to consider them after all.
The following matrix compares secondary requirements between countries:
Bureaucratic requirements have yet to be investigated. Both Spain and Portugal have programs in place to make depopulated areas attractive to new residents. In the Spanish autonomous region of Galicia alone, an estimated 1,000 villages are empty. This, in combination with small municipal sizes, a significant number with fewer than 100 inhabitants, makes Spain and in particular the north-western autonomous region of Galicia a clear front runner. What do you think?
Thanks for the succinct easy to read information.
My personal preference, at this juncture, is Spain.
Reading this is like hearing an echo of my thoughts. Last year we played with the idea of going to Sweden. And last year we ended up finding a bit of peace in Groningen (coming from a closed down Belgium). Both Spain and Portugal have been on the idea shortlist for retiring to – at some point in our lives – because the cost of living is considered low and indeed it is still near-ish the family.
I think an eastern european country like hungary croatia, czech, Slovakia, and Serbia should also be considered for less taxes, less bureaucracy, eu sceptical, less regulations, easier to home school or set up a school, no Euro, and freer fire arm laws. The population is also more freedom minded and definitely less socialist then in Portugal, Spain, Italy or France. Also as already stated in most of those countries houses and land are available for low prices ( with the exception for the big cities and the czech/german border regions).
I could help out with the option to try Hungary or Czech as I have family there and maybe Slovakia as I have friends who live there. These countries also don’t have vaccination cards or strict lockdowns and most of the citizens have stopt listening to the corona mandates anyways especially in rural areas.
I love the idea of this free commune although it brings back some mwah memories from the 60s-70s and 80s, it was to hippie at that time. I know cause I was hippie myself.
But times have changed and nowadays certainly the opportunities are there.
I live in France now some 23 years in Burgundy, weather wise not the best climate, so my favorite would be Portugal and not Galicia Spain because it rains a lot there and the temperature is much lower in wintertime. Besides the weather, Portugal is crypto friendly and crypto is taxfree!, very important in the future.
Note: All this can only succeed if the WEF plans collapses, but I have no doubt it will.