European mini-states

Here's the topic. I have no article here at the moment. All I mentioned in the other topic was read in the library actually, before internet-ages.

Huh? You mean like Adorra and Liechtenstein?

You decided to open this thread in this sub-forum, so I need to point out that societies in these countries deeply care about sovereignty and only Luxembourg joined to European Union. To be precise, they are one of six founding members of European Coal and Steel Community. Today prime minister of Luxembourg Jean Marie Juncker is a quite important figure in political circles of this organization. This is because he staunchly support policy of integration/centralization and plays a role of proxy of Franco-German axis in the European community. The country is still more liberal than larger states and simply more prosperous because of that.

Other small states prefer to stay outside of the EU because membership would prevent them from running free market orientated policy. Tones of bureaucratic regulations produced by the EU would effectively torpedoed such policy. Even outside their leaders afraid pressure from Brussels.

Hans Adam II the price of Liechtenstein said in on of interviews

Quote :

"We cannot ignore the danger caused by the EU, which still trying to destroy tax paradises in Europe (...) Because of that I hope that more open minded policy will succeed in Europe, that members of the EU will defend it and taxes will successively decrease". (http://prawica.net/node/8082 My translation from Polish)

Liechtenstein is really interesting country, still a true monarchy, which happened to have a lucks to its royal family.

Quote :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2853991.stm
The people of Liechtenstein have voted to make their prince an absolute monarch again.

Early results showed nearly two-thirds of the tiny principality's electorate had agreed to back Hans-Adam II's demands.

(...)

Hans-Adam - Crown Prince of Liechtenstein since 1989 - already had the right to dissolve parliament and call elections.

But he wanted the power to hire and fire governments for the 160-square-kilometre (62-square-mile) country - the sixth smallest in the world.

He has also the power to appoint judges (not dismiss!).

Yeah, that is what I heard about Liechtenstein also! It's strange. It cannot be called really democracy, can it be? And even though living-standard is very high, they seem to be satisfied with their prince, so...but it can only work in such a small country.

Kiskun wrote:

Yeah, that is what I heard about Liechtenstein also! It's strange. It cannot be called really democracy, can it be? And even though living-standard is very high, they seem to be satisfied with their prince, so...

This is simply monarchy but there is no sense to any system reform if status quo works well. In my opinion monarchy is better system than democracy if royal family have I would say culture of ruling. Of course otherwise monarchy sucks more than democracy. So I would not advocate for monarchy in democratic countries because you will never know who would become a king. However I would not advocate for democracy if monarchy looks like in Liechtenstein, I even envy them a bit

Quote :

but it can only work in such a small country.

I disagree with such conclusion. I think that this is not a criteria but rather this mentioned culture of ruling of royal family. In Liechtenstein they have also smart society what makes this country to be even more successful.

I would raise the example of Saudi Arabia. Saudi royal family definetely have a class in opposition to society. They perfectly explored natural resources of their country sharing this richness with ordinary citizens. Look how many pathetic countries full of oil and gas exist today, to name Venezuela, Nigeria, Russia, Iraq or Iran. I'm sure that if somebody would install democracy few decades ago in Saudi Arabia their prosperity would be melody of the past right now.

Rzeczpospolita wrote:

...I'm sure that if somebody would install democracy few decades ago in Saudi Arabia their prosperity would be melody of the past right now.

It sounds like when masses of Hungarians say "How good it was in Communism!" Just think about women in Saudi Arabia.
And they have been electing the communist party's efterparty for the third time now. Unfortunately they are the majority.


Once I heard that in Poland, Czech Rep, Romania... people tore their relations with the socialistic past so much because there the former system was really worse than now. In Hungary we cannot say the same. Here shops weren't so empty like in other countries.So the luckier 40-45% kept their status or experienced a smaller rise in the living-conditions. But as for the surveys, at least 45% say that their lives became worse after the Changing of the System. And most of these say, "it became much worse". (The rest said "I don't know, or didn't answer")

You know we had a so-called "Goulash-communism" which really wasn't that bad from the late 1970'S. Just those poor fellows cannot understand that it was payed of loans, not because our economy would have been so good.

Ok, so in the end I only wanted to show that maybe there are some things which are good now in Saudi Arabia, but since it is not a democracy there are other things which don't go well at all. So now one can choose: Women's excluding of normal life or good economy (which is absolutely not compulsorily good for the whole society. There can be skyscrapers anywhere in the world where there are enough good-going enterprises and businesses, while the majority lives of substantial farming, like China)
in my country we have similar debates about our former system, that is why I brought up that as an example.

I consider Saudi customs to be backward and this cannot be changed from day to day by a king. This move would cause similar reaction as American invasion of Iraq. Radical Islamists are strong over there and royal family try to avoid open conflicts with them. Only time can solve this problem.

Talking about monarchies and small countries in Europe one must mention Vatican. Specific theist monarchy. Although some democratic element exist in Vatican as well, there is no royal family and Pope is elected by congregation of cardinals.

I know that the only country in the world is Andorra where the prime-minister hasn't got the citizenship in his own country.