With all the dismal news about America lately, my home, I’m starting to seriously look at where else to move.
Putting aside for now the difficulty of actually immigrating to some countries, I’m curious on the opinions of others (especially people living outside the U.S) on this.
What I’m looking for in a country is, I imagine, similar to many people. I’m trying to find somewhere that will exhibit:
- Low racism
- Low sexism
- Low LGBTQ-phobia
- Strong laws around food quality and safety
- Strong laws about environmental protection
- Strong laws against unethical corporate practices (monopoly, corruption, lobbying, etc)
- Strong laws for privacy
- Good treatment of mentally ill, homeless, and impoverished people
Those are the real important things. Of course the nice-to-haves are almost too obvious to be worth listing, low cost of living, strong art and cultural scene, nice environment, and so on.
My actual constraints that might really matter are that I only speak English (and maybe like A1-2 level German). It seems incredibly intimidating to try to find employment somewhere when I can hardly speak the language.
I know nowhere on Earth is perfect, just curious what people may have to suggest. I hope this question isn’t too selfish to ask here.
After been in 5 continents in 30+ countries and living in 6… the best for your requirements is Spain. Spain, even the opposing parties are unlikely to touch most of those protections since it has wide support among the population. Now, Spain is not panacea, it still has stigma against Gypsies, older people face job discrimination, etc.
Regarding privacy is OK, more due to inaction than protection but far better than most neighbors in the north.
On corruption… the ‘perception’ is that there is plenty but no more than I witnessed in countries like Germany, UK or USA… the difference is that corruption in Spain is highly exposed by rival parties/media while in the other countries it is no so sensationalized, that is why of the increase ‘perception’. By the way, Scandinavia, that I used to admire, above local governments, I don´t see it much better on corruption levels, specially since late 2000s.
Regarding foreigners, Spain has many offers in certain jobs, where English is a requirement, but not easy at all for more common jobs where the local language is what is mostly used, even if you dominate it well. Now, you will be surprised how many companies are moving jobs to Spain since it is easier to attract talent to Barcelona or Malaga than to Berlin or Grenoble… and they save in salaries.
Now, if you put less emphasis in sexism and LGBTQ, certain countries in Latin America like Mexico or Uruguay, or across the ocean others like Malaysia may be more appealing, it is not that they are expressively against those groups, it is just they demand a more quiet sexual expression from you.
Lastly, countries like Australia, New Zealand and the like have become so corrupt at high level and against privacy and freedom of expression in certain topics, should be disregarded if you emphasis on that. Ireland, is the only exception in the Anglo world, now, like Switzerland and Norway, they are floating in money o every one is okay while economies are good… the test comes, as always, come in challenging times. Till, then, consider those three too.
Spain is one of the main supporters of the infamous chatcontrol and wants to ban encryption. So, please tell me more about Spain and its stance on privacy …
Chat control, ban encryption? Where do you get that? I follow occasionally Spanish politics and never came across that. It may have been raised by some lone politician but highly unlikely to happen, unless other countries like France or Germany does it first, nor the people will follow with any mandate. The problem is if the main opposition party gets in power… they are more inclined to do that but even there I don´t see it spearheading any of that by themselves.
The Spanish government has a very strong opinion on this:
https://www.techradar.com/news/spain-seeks-to-ban-encryption-leaked-document-reveals
There are many more news articles about this.
Again, that seems to be a personal vendetta of the minister Grande-Marlaska that keeps going secretly against the government policy (like the recently Israeli munition purchase that wast promptly canceled). No parliament debate on encryption or even public debate has been brought up at all. If it does, the minute it comes up, it would be turned down swiftly by the current coalition government. The President has no made any statement on banning encryption either, nor I think he would either. However, he did talk on identification on social media, but he will not spearhead that, nor it is doable to implement for now.
This is the official position of the Spanish government in the European Council. And it is unchanged for the last years. This is no “personal vendetta” or some secret agenda. Spain is again and again voting against encryption.
Maybe you should google that stuff.
I hear you, I am worry too. But again… this is a risk at the European level, not at the Spanish one; in Spain, it simply would not pass today. with a different government, of course, it can… Of all freedoms, this one concerns me the least, simply because it is mostly impossible to enforce for citizens.
Back to the original question though, of the 8 requirements, this one on privacy we could leave as a contentious point. But it is because law, it will affect all EU contenders ( and Switzerland will be pressured to oblige too soon after)