Will the Micronation of Liberland Receive International Recognition?
We’ve talked about micronations before here, and today, we will take the time to discuss one particular micronation that has the best chance at actually becoming a sovereign state: Liberland.
The Free Republic of Liberland was founded in 2015 by Czech politician Vit Jedlička and has an area of seven square kilometers. At that size, it is quite small and would be a microstate if it gained sovereignty, but it would be larger than the Vatican City, Monaco, and the British province of Gibraltar. Monaco has 37000 residents in just two square kilometers, so it is feasible that Liberland could build up a population of around 100000 citizens.
Liberland was founded as a result of a border dispute between Croatia and Serbia concerning the route of the Danube River between their countries. Upon scrutiny of their land claims, Jedlička discovered that a small bit of land on the western bank of the river (pictured below) was left unclaimed, and per the internationally recognized rules regarding land claims, Jedlička claimed the land as his own. Serbia declared that Liberland’s borders do not infringe upon their own, but Croatia has attempt to act dismissively and denounce Liberland despite the fact that it doesn’t interfere with Croatia’s proclaimed borders, either.
Jedlička is a politcian with classical liberal political views, and so he wants Liberland to be the world’s first truly libertarian nation. To that end, he has gotten support from libertarians across the world including the United States’ Libertarian Party. In reality, Liberland would probably benefit European countries who prefer a more centralized government since many of their libertarian citizens would seek to emigrate to Liberland in order to enjoy more personal freedoms. Liberland’s provisional “government” is advocating for popular libertarian ideas like cryptocurrency and legalized drug use. If you are interested to hear about their would-be policies, I encourage you to look through their website or check out the Liberland YouTube channel.
