Founding the Free Republic of Liberland
2021-09-27 · Guest: Vít Jedlička (President of the Free Republic of Liberland) · 52:32
Founding and legal status of Liberland
Bob Zadek interviews Vít Jedlička, the founder and president of the Free Republic of Liberland, a micronation established on a parcel of unclaimed land between Serbia and Croatia. They discuss the legal theory of terra nullius, the influence of Frédéric Bastiat on the country’s libertarian philosophy, and the implementation of a merit-based governance system powered by blockchain technology.
Topics: Liberland, Libertarianism, Frédéric Bastiat, Terra Nullius, International Law, Blockchain Governance, Voluntary Taxation, Meritocracy, E-residency
Speakers: Bob Zadek: Host Vít Jedlička: President of the Free Republic of Liberland
Introduction to Liberland [00:00]
Bob Zadek: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Bob Zadek Show, the longest-running live libertarian talk radio show on all of radio. The show this Sunday, and always, the show of ideas, never once the show of attitude. The show that doesn’t merely deal in opinions—somebody’s opinion is often not that interesting—but we drill down and we find and we learn and we discover together the reasoning behind the opinions. The reasoning, the how-one-gets-there, is oh-so-interesting for most of us. So this is the show where we will drill down. We do not deal in opinions; we deal in reasoning, how one gets there.
This morning’s show, I am particularly honored. This is the first time that I have had on the show the president of a nation. I guess we need a bit of a drumroll. We don’t have drums handy, so you’ll have to have a virtual drumroll. This morning, I am happy to welcome back to the show Vít Jedlička. Vít is the president of perhaps the newest nation on Earth, the nation of Liberland, which Vít founded and created in a very interesting way, which we will learn about this morning.
So if you are unhappy with the government you live in—most of us just complain—but Vít has decided, well, he’ll solve his unhappiness by creating his own country, and then he would be happy as can be. And the story of the conceiving of the concept of a free libertarian nation of Liberland, the concept, how it developed, how it was built from nothing—or perhaps from a sandy beach, if you will—you will learn that. How it was built from that concept to where it is today. I’m happy to welcome to the show, welcome back again, Vít Jedlička. Vít, who is speaking to us this morning from Prague, welcome to the show this morning.
Vít Jedlička: It’s great to be with you, Robert, as always.
Bob Zadek: And it is an honor to have you back. I appreciate it. Now, I dare say, although my audience, I like to boast, is according to demographics quite well-informed, quite plugged in, but some of them might embarrassingly admit they may not be all that familiar with Liberland. So first, Vít, tell us, just so we know, the geography. Where is Liberland? And from what geographic history did it spring? And then we will go into how you went about creating a nation, where you are today, and where you hope to be in the short and intermediate-term future. So first, where is it? And obviously, all of us think that all the land on Earth is part of some country. That, we will learn, I suspect, is an incorrect assumption. But if we start with that assumption, how did you find this land? How did it become not part of any country? First, where is it?
The Discovery of Terra Nullius [01:31]
Vít Jedlička: Well, it is located between Croatia and Serbia. In 2014, we were looking hard to find a place where to set up a new country. We were looking for many options. We almost ended up between Egypt and Sudan. We made a list of all these territories that would be suitable for the creation of a new country because we believed that was the best solution to the problem that we had: the big government all around the world, with 95% of the states being over-regulative and over-taxation all around the place. So we were just thinking, let’s start a new country and let’s pick the best territory out there for it.
And there is a Wikipedia page which lists these territories. You can check it out. There are not too many. And I can tell you, back those six and a half years ago, Liberland was the best spot to claim. It was in Europe. It’s a beautiful place that lies on the Danube between Croatia and Serbia, only 10 kilometers away from the Hungarian border. So it is literally on the verge or on the edge of the European Union, but we are not part of the European Union. And it is a beautiful piece of land with a lot of nature, with beautiful sandy beaches, with one huge sandy island—a perfect place to start a new country.
Bob Zadek: And how, when you said you looked around for the land and there’s a Wikipedia page, tell us more about that. It’s not like looking for a vacation home or a second home or looking for a gated community somewhere. So when you say Wikipedia page, what exactly did you mean? And tell us a bit about the politics, just a bit, that created this, perhaps the phrase is “unclaimed land,” unclaimed by any country.
Vít Jedlička: Well, after the split of Yugoslavia, Serbia never claimed this territory and Croatia neither. And so when we started Liberland, the last basically country that was ever in that particular place was actually Yugoslavia. But Yugoslavia got dissolved, so the previous rulers over this place were Habsburgs. And by the way, this week I have to visit them in Austria.
But this place was literally left alone by both Croatia and Serbia. Shortly after we started the country, Serbia officially stated they don’t mind the creation of Liberland; it’s not formed on their territory. Despite all world maps showing that Liberland is part of Serbia, Serbia has directly denied that claim. And many world media misinterpreted it; they said that Liberland is claimed by both Croatia and Serbia. And we had a direct statement right after the creation from the Foreign Ministry of Serbia that it was actually not built on the territory of Serbia. And it was also not built on any known territory of Croatia. Croatia didn’t enter into the EU with Liberland. It has never claimed this territory. But of course, you know, building a new country is not without any hassle. Croatia is still kind of over-protective of this area. But on the other hand, they have not, since the inception of the country, they have not made any claim towards the territory of Liberland. And from that point of view, we are in a great political and, I would say, negotiation position in which we are not a separatist country by any means. We just started the country on a terra nullius.
The Philosophy of Frédéric Bastiat [07:57]
Bob Zadek: Now, it is not, I dare say, not everybody in the world who has as one of their lifetime goals to create a country from scratch. That’s a tad ambitious. So help our friends out there understand a bit about who you are. What brought you to the position in 2014 of saying, “Hmm, I think I’d like to form a country right now”? Tell us a bit about you and how you came to be so unhappy with, in general, the existing state of the countries you were familiar with to decide you had to build one from scratch.
Vít Jedlička: Well, I studied Frédéric Bastiat when I was 13. I came across his books by coincidence, and then I really became a keen supporter of laissez-faire from that on. And I remember reading his book, The Law—and by the way, I really recommend it to your readers—it’s an amazing book which summarizes all what is wrong with the modern society, yet it was written some 250 years ago. So it is really interesting how Frédéric Bastiat was able to put all these problems of the modern politics into the book so old.
And unfortunately, he is not very well known in France. He has been really the grandfather of the movement, of the libertarian movement, from which Mises and Rothbard and all the other thinkers, I would say, were taking the source from. And I was really keen to push forward his idea, to free the society from the oppression that was happening by the state and that is still happening all around the world. And I could understand through his book how much energy can be unleashed.
And of course, when you come to this world, you want to be helpful, and you think how most you can be helpful. And when you realize that the governments are the biggest obstacle for the prosperity and happiness of the people on this planet, then you have to do something about it. And Frédéric Bastiat had a cure, you know. He just said, “Let people be. Let the bloodstream, let the blood of the body go through the veins without any obstacles. Let the economy be. Don’t install tariffs. Don’t tax the people. Don’t regulate them, because all these regulations are there mostly for the benefit of few, usually some monopolies.”
So that made me go and study economy at the Economic School of Prague and also Charles University. And then I studied at CEVRO Institute—by the way, that’s one of the few libertarian universities which is based in Prague, and I really recommend everybody that would like to do an MBA to go there as well. And I studied these two universities, I started a think tank which is called Reformy.cz, which has some 20 million views now on YouTube and other channels, so there was quite a successful liberty campaign. And after that, we also started a political party. And we managed to get one member into the European Parliament fairly soon. But when you realize that even if you had a majority in that European Parliament, you wouldn’t be able to change the system, you just think, you know, maybe it’s much easier to start a new country than to try to fix the system from within. And that’s what I like about Maxwell’s quote: you know, it’s much easier to stop fighting the existing reality, change the things, and the reality will change itself, right? Just go for it and build instead of trying to fight with whatever you don’t like. So that really got me going on the Liberland story. And from that time on, I was thinking maybe there is an alternative, maybe starting a country is really the easiest way to go.
Planting the Flag [12:17]
Bob Zadek: It’s pretty strange to most of my listeners and to myself when you think that starting a country is easier than anything. How, I sit and hear you speak and I say, how could starting a country possibly be easier than anything else in the world? That has to be the hardest thing there is on Earth to do, which means only that that is really a statement about how hard it is to change the way business is conducted in Europe, in the EU and the like. So it’s not so much a statement about starting a country—that is, I dare say, a pretty formidable task—but it’s a statement about how hard it is to get Europe into, to free it from some of its bureaucratic problems that it has, which are so inhibiting its growth.
So okay, so you did nothing other than you went on Wikipedia and found areas of our planet that are available, sort of like going on eBay or Amazon and looking for the perfect something. So you went on to find the perfect area of land that you could acquire, if acquire is the right word, to create a country. So you found this land, and did you just declare it to be yours? Was there a legal or diplomatic process you had to go through in order to actually go from the concept to Liberland?
Vít Jedlička: Well, we went to Liberland on the first day. We stick the flag in the middle of it, and we let the world media know. And we also let all the world governments know. We sent everybody a diplomatic letter, and we actually managed to get a couple of confirmations that the letter was well received. Very recently, I spoke with the Foreign Minister of Liechtenstein, and she acknowledged that she actually received it and read it at the time.
So we let the world know that Liberland exists. We let all the heads of the governments know that Liberland exists. And we started to collect applications for citizenship, because at the time we were only three citizens on the first day, right? And I was thinking, you know, we might get like 20,000 people to sign up in a year, so we will have a nice small nation of 20,000 people and we will give everybody citizenship and it will be great. But then on the first day, we actually received 200,000 applications. So we received them in one day instead of one year, and we received 10 times more than we expected for the whole year. So it was a big, huge start. And then it was 400,000 by the end of the week. It was an amazing boost.
And after all this interest by normal people, we received an enormous wave of interest by world media: Russia Today, all the major media, the Metro, Time Magazine, CNN—everybody wanted to do an interview. I was probably one of the few presidents that didn’t reply to Washington Post for an interview because I had more than half a million emails in my mailbox and it was really difficult to filter through this. So it was a crazy time, and I was literally sleeping only two or three hours a day in order to try to manage that huge amount of interest in the creation of the new country. The interest still continues, yet it is more manageable now. We have a big team of people all around the world. We are represented in more than 100 countries, so people can turn to their local representatives if they need something. And I think we’re very well-functional as a larger diplomatic body, probably represented better than many other European countries now.
Drafting the Constitution [16:49]
Bob Zadek: Now, you mentioned that day in April, I think it was April 13th, when you planted the flag. Was it a coincidence about the special date of April, if I have the date right? But tell us, what’s the significance of the date you planted the flag for the first time?
Vít Jedlička: I think many of your listeners will know that it’s actually the birthday of Thomas Jefferson, even though it’s still disputed which day was it actually. But it’s very likely that he was born on 13th of April. We wanted to really appreciate his personal involvement in the whole American Revolution, and we felt like the Declaration of Independence was a great document. So we wanted to start the country on his birthday, and we wanted to invoke the spirit of American Revolution with that step. And I think that was actually successful. Liberland is a modern-day tax exodus or a new kind of Tea Party movement that is creating a new country, but this time in Europe.
Bob Zadek: Now, tell us, so obviously our audience already has picked up, given the name of the country, the date of its creation, that it is founded on libertarian principles. But tell us how you went about building and drafting a libertarian—I presume that’s an accurate label—constitution. What were the principles that dictated how you wrote the constitution, and what model, if anything, did you use in drafting the Liberland constitution?
Vít Jedlička: Well, when we started Liberland on that day, we actually didn’t have the constitution ready. Yet we stated in that first press release that we really want to make a country where honest people can prosper without over-regulation and over-taxation. And I was really honored that probably a week after, we had this great constitutional lawyer from London, a young guy that came to us and said, “You need a constitution. I’m here to help.” So he did the initial draft of that constitution, and he did a great job. We used a lot of his work in the final version of the constitution, which we are putting together these days.
And if there are some listeners who would like to be involved in this final drafting, which is taking place literally from this month until the end of the year, I would be very happy if people got involved in that process. It is a great intellectual exercise for lawyers, but it’s also a great exercise technically because what we are doing is that we are putting everything on blockchain, on a decentralized platform. So many of the things that are mentioned in the constitution are actually going to function directly as smart contracts, automatically on a decentralized network. But maybe about it later, right?
Bob Zadek: Well, when you say when you just invited lawyers to participate in the drafting of the constitution, that was very, very persuasive on your part, as I myself, of course, I’m a practicing attorney. And it always had great appeal to me throughout my years of practice. There were often invitations sent out through the American Bar Association and related lawyer organizations asking for volunteers—these are countries in Eastern Europe and in Asia who wanted to enhance their economic condition, and they knew that the way to grow economically was first and foremost to build a body of commercial law that would respect property rights, enforce contracts, and without that, you couldn’t grow economically. So the invitation to lawyers to help build a freedom environment, I dare say, will be very appealing to any lawyers in the audience who happen to listen to your appeal. And at the end of the show—in fact, why don’t we do it now, just while we’re on the thought—if lawyers are interested in contributing to the finalization of a free market, freedom-driven constitution, Vít, just tell those lawyers out there who or others who may be listening how they could contact you, how they could volunteer.
Vít Jedlička: So I’m very happy, and I believe you have a very good audience. I’m very happy to give my personal email contact. It’s president@liberland.org. It’s fairly easy, and I will forward them to our Justice Minister who is organizing this group of people that are reviewing the latest draft of the constitution before it gets launched on the blockchain.
Building the Government and Infrastructure [22:43]
Bob Zadek: Thank you so much for that, and I do hope and frankly expect you’ll get—be careful what you wish for—you may end up with an increase in the half a million or so unread emails that you have. This may exacerbate your unread column in your inbox, but you’ll get through it. Just cut back your sleeping from two hours a day to one and a half, and you’ll catch up.
So here we are. You have drafted a constitution. You have, I believe, a Secretary of State.
Vít Jedlička: Yes, we have a Secretary of State, Tariq Abbasi, a very distinguished gentleman who is also a representative of the British Queen. I’m really happy about the team of diplomats that we have.
Bob Zadek: And what did you go about doing diplomatically? And tell us about some of the process of starting with unclaimed land on the Danube that’s orphaned, neither Serbia nor Croatia assert a claim to it. And we start with that. We start with you, libertarian-oriented, merely seeking to build an environment that encourages free choice of all its citizens and its business entities. So how did you go about getting recognition, going from the concept to the reality?
Vít Jedlička: Well, first of all, it’s important to say that the existence of a state is independent from recognition. It is—those two things are separate stories, and this is directly written in the Montevideo Agreement, which basically lays out how the countries are created. So basically, the country of Liberland started to exist on the day of its declaration on 13th of April 2015. And from that time on, with the collection of more and more applications for citizenships—and now we have close to 700,000—the nation is fairly big right now, a little bit bigger than Malta or Iceland.
We are fighting for recognition from the other countries. And at the same time, we’re building the ecosystem of Liberland so it functions like a real country, including the system of justice, the system of registries, and many other things. And at the same time, we’re also laying out our plans for the construction, physical construction of Liberland itself. And I have a really exciting news that Zaha Hadid, one of the top architectural companies in the world, has taken on the task to prepare the first urban design of Liberland, which we are going to release in two weeks from now.
Bob Zadek: So you’re actually going to start to physically develop your 7.2 approximate kilometers on the Danube River. There’s going to be now a physical presence as well as a political presence. It’s now going to have economic activity on the land itself, which of course is…
Vít Jedlička: Well, first of all, we’re making a plan. We are already building on the opposite side of Liberland. We’re building a base, a construction base and place for people to gather for settlement of Liberland and for the construction inside of Liberland. But first, we need a plan, and we need agreement on that plan. And this first initial draft that is going to be available to anybody through the virtual reality done by a respected architectural studio is going to be released in 14 days. So next round of settlement and next round of activity directly in Liberland, a serious activity, will happen again with the next anniversary and will peak in August next year when we are organizing a big event, a big festival, where we are always coming to Liberland and we’re building something there and we’re moving it to the next level. So right now, the plan and agreement on what that plan is. Second is the investors, and that’s something which I’m coming to collect, hopefully, in a next week in Dubai. And then execution, and I would really like to see some big moves happening early next year.
Learning from Other Nations [27:39]
Bob Zadek: Now, when you go about having this become a reality, I’m just curious, how did you know how to do it? I imagine myself as a practicing lawyer, a client calls and says, “Hi Bob, I’d like to engage you. I’d like to hire you to help me create a country.” I would be, to be quite direct, a bit stumped. So what did you use as a model? How did you frankly know how to do it, or how did you learn? There can’t be a kit or a template that you can buy online that tells you how to build a country from scratch. So did you learn while doing it? Did you have advice?
Vít Jedlička: Yeah, by the way, I’m writing the book with that title right now. But of course, I was collecting everything that I learned previously, and there is a lot of experience with country creation, for example, in Israel. And you know, and there is lots of diplomatic experience from small countries like Liechtenstein or Monaco, or for example, Montenegro that wasn’t created too long time ago and it’s kind of close to Liberland itself. So I was learning hard from these examples, as well as, for example, from some other examples like Somaliland, an unrecognized country which is fairly big with 5 million people living in there, which we went to and we recognized each other some two and a half years ago.
And of course, we learned from the countries like Singapore, like Hong Kong, that are the beacons of the liberty of today, or even places like Dubai, which are good examples how something can be built in a very short time from nothing based on free market principles.
The Structure of Governance [29:49]
Bob Zadek: Now, the structure of your constitution. One thinks of—we all are familiar with the American constitution with the three tiers of government: the executive, judicial, and legislative branches. So did you follow that model? Did you follow a parliamentary system or something in between? How did you build that governmental infrastructure in your constitution?
Vít Jedlička: Well, we were very much inspired by the US constitution, a little bit from Swiss democracy, and a little bit from the Singapore meritocracy. So we combined basically these three elements, and we give it a really fresh look on how to make sure that the constitution doesn’t go bad like it, for example, happened in United States where many of the original principles are broken these days. So we wanted to make some sort of protective tools inside of the constitution itself.
But we basically divided the government into the three branches. And these three branches are similar to what we can see in United States. The Congress is forming a government, that government proposes laws, and then the assembly or the Congress has to approve these laws. The important part is that people are, in those, in that particular institution, don’t vote one person, one vote, but they vote one person and as many merits as they have. So it’s important that people that have done something more for the country or they paid more voluntary taxes have a bigger say than people that have done a little bit less or they paid less voluntary taxes. I think that’s one of the important principles that needs to be fixed with the regular democracy.
But on the other hand, this government, when it creates a law or regulation, it is subject to three vetoes. It can be vetoed by citizens, and that’s one person, one vote, where the majority of society can get rid of any law. Or it can be vetoed by Senate, some sort of House of Elders that Liberland has. Or it can be vetoed by Constitutional Court. And I think it’s very important that the state creates as little laws as possible and that there are many ways to get rid of them so that the whole system doesn’t get clogged up like we see in the modern societies today. So that element of Swiss democracy, which I would say is quite unique and is working very well there, we decided to adopt as well. The citizens don’t have a direct right to impose something on the minority in the society, but they can get rid of any regulation that the government comes up with.
The Merit System and Voluntary Taxation [33:02]
Bob Zadek: Now, you said something that got my attention, and I suspect a lot of Americans would perk up over and perhaps react negatively. By the way, you mentioned merit. Merit, of course, is your currency. It’s the equivalent of the dollar, and you trade, I think, at one merit for one dollar, just because you used the phrase merit and the audience is not familiar with that term. So that’s your unit of currency. But you mentioned something that really caught my attention, and that was that you seemed to suggest—and please expand upon it a little bit—that those with more money have more political power. That would…
Vít Jedlička: No, no, no, it’s not at all like that. And there is a great example of that. You know, for example, the Prime Minister in Czech Republic is very wealthy man, but he doesn’t pay much taxes. He actually gets a lot of subsidies from the state, right? So he is there because he’s able to manipulate the masses to make him a Prime Minister, but he didn’t earn it, right? He didn’t have the merits, and he is actually using the state to get even more funding. And when I say that, I’m talking about $500 million a year, or a quarter billion dollars a year. It is enormous amount of money that he’s getting both from EU and the state budget.
And so that’s not the case. Not that the wealthy people would be the ones to rule the society like it is already today. It would be the people that contribute the most to the creation of the society, and those are not the same people. Please take note of that.
Bob Zadek: So in other words, those people get credit for contributing value to the state. They get a benefit for doing that, for donating or making the state a better place. Tell us more about that.
Vít Jedlička: Yes, exactly. You know, so instead of you going and bribing somebody to issue some new law to make some benefit, it’s much better if you don’t have to bribe anybody. If you have some sort of problem that you want to solve and you want to have more political power to push it through, you should be the one to put your money into the country creation, right? So I think that’s actually a good way how to put the incentives into alignment. Not putting money inside of politician’s pockets, but put the money into a voluntary system of taxes in Liberland.
And it’s, you know, if you think about it, it’s really cool that in Liberland, not just that the taxes are voluntary, but there you actually get something in return for paying them. Think about it. Like in United States, you pay $20 million in taxes and nobody even says thank you in the tax office. And you pay just a little bit less, and you end up in the jail. And in Liberland, we actually do appreciate the amount of taxes that you pay, and we do reward you for paying those taxes with bigger say inside of Liberland by basically giving you a little bit more, a little bit more say than the others have.
Liberland as a Model for Freedom [36:37]
Bob Zadek: What is so interesting to hear you speak, Vít, what is so interesting to me is you are providing a think piece for Americans and those in other countries as well to have a chance to examine what is wrong at present with where we are politically. Because you have thoughtfully observed a system that I dare say starts with principles that you greatly admire, but in your opinion and those others who have drafted the constitution, and you have identified where there are things that are not working out so well, and you have kind of started from scratch and taken the best that we have to offer and rejected the worst that we have to offer.
So it’s a fresh look at the same concepts. You start with the same principles that our country did 240 years ago. You start with the same principles and you get to a slightly different place, and many would say an improved place. So intellectually, it’s quite interesting to see where you are in your process and to see what we can learn from it. So you have as a byproduct a lot of interesting points for Americans and other those of us who are liberty-minded around the world, a thought process to help rebuild our own country or at least have a target and understand objectively what’s wrong with it. So already Liberland has contributed meaningfully to what’s going on and what’s wrong with what’s going on politically around the world. And for that, I think the world is already happy that you’re here.
Now, as for Liberland, you have how many citizens right now?
Vít Jedlička: We do have more than 1,000 citizens, but we do have 700,000 applications. So it is not that easy to become citizen. It doesn’t just, you know, it doesn’t just—you don’t go on the website and just sign up. You actually have to do something for Liberland. But on the other hand, we do have a couple thousand more e-residents, which is much easier to achieve. And it’s an easy step where you get a Liberland ID, you are able to open up Liberland company, you can become active part of the Liberland ecosystem by becoming the e-resident first. And this is something that we have kind of copy-pasted from Estonia, which has started the first e-residency program as a country.
Bob Zadek: You mentioned Estonia. That is a country that I greatly admire. I, but for the weather, I look with envy at Estonia as—oh my goodness—they are also a blockchain-type organized country with great efficiencies using those systems. They are profoundly free market, low taxation, and sort of a role model for you in many ways, I dare say. So you have worked your way into my heart and my mind by mentioning Estonia on my show. So I thank you for that. And you have picked two wonderful role models: the United States and Estonia. So frankly, Vít, you can’t go wrong now because you’re following in the footsteps of some pretty interesting countries when it comes to liberty.
Now, tell us about—so you have a backlog in applications. It sounds like you need more bureaucrats because you have a backlog, and backlogs clog up the government. Is your problem bureaucratic or just demand beyond your wildest dreams?
Vít Jedlička: Well, not really. I’m happy about our bureaucratic stuff here, Peter. I’m actually at his desk now by coincidence. He’s doing great job in organizing the team of our representatives into interviewing and making sure we get the best people on board. But yes, we are selective. You know, we are a serious nation-building and country-building project, and we really want to have the best people on board. We make sure that they get through a process in which we get to know them before they become citizens. And I’m happy about it. You know, if we actually have a couple five or 10 new citizens a week, it’s a great progress for Liberland and it’s healthy growth.
So, and one other thing is that I also believe once we launch this blockchain governance, we will have another round of enormous interest into Liberland that we will have to manage because like many other crypto-related or blockchain-related projects, I’m expecting a lot of new people to apply for the citizenship and then the price of merit could skyrocket possibly. I hope it will. So it will be another round of interest, and we’re literally getting ready for it so we would be able to accept 20 or 30 new people every single week on board with Liberland and give them the place in our blockchain governance.
Diplomatic Support and Recognition [42:38]
Bob Zadek: Are there countries around the world that you’re free to mention which have been more than typically supportive, that have been very supportive of your efforts and have become not military but at least political allies of a sort and are helping you reach your goal? Can you identify any countries that you want to give a special mention to which have been supportive of your efforts?
Vít Jedlička: Well, the ambassador of Australia, I think two days after Liberland was incepted, congratulated me for the effort. It just came to my mind. So Australia, a country which is close to Liberland, showed a very early interest in Liberland through the ambassador. But I would say one of the interesting countries or for us also a role model, Liechtenstein, the most—the wealthiest place on the planet. And Prince Hans-Adam said personally with delight that he’s looking forward to sit in UN together because we are in the similar place in alphabet: Liechtenstein, Liberland. So I would say that was very promising as well. And we do have now three recognitions by some UN members or partial recognitions by UN members. So we are able to get a stronger diplomatic support. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you which these countries are because we want to make it a surprise, and when we get a little bit more of them, basically disclose it as a package. But we’re building an alliance of countries that support Liberland and they want to see it flourish and they’re ready to support it diplomatically also on the UN ground.
Bob Zadek: And when you interact with other countries, typically—because I’m sure you have a lot of contact with other UN members—at what level do you interact with them in their state departments or whatever the equivalent is?
Vít Jedlička: Well, not too long ago, for example, I was on the lunch with the President of Bosnia and Herzegovina. So I’m trying to keep myself on that type of level. And for lower-level contact, I’m always having our members of government, Foreign Minister and the Secretary of State, actively traveling around the world and meeting their counterparts in order to get the recognition going. And so, for example, our Secretary of State is on a very important mission also next week in Africa. So cross fingers for us. Our diplomatic mission is getting serious in that part of the world as well.
Bob Zadek: Have any other countries looked at your constitution and asked you to help them move in the direction where you are already at? Have people expressed an interest in the theory of government you’re expressing? And of course, those other countries have other role models: the West and the large free market, relatively free market democracies. But have you been asked to assist them in reorganizing their system of government to approach a free market system? In short, have you become kind of a new shining city on the hill for other countries that are less far along from a point of view of freedom?
Vít Jedlička: Well, we are always asked about our ways of governance and our brochures do explain it well how we are planning to run our business. But I think we’re a little bit far ahead from other regular countries. But whatever we’re making, we’re making open source. So anybody will be able to take that code, take that blockchain, take that constitution, take all these ideas associated with it and copy-paste it and potentially also start another country or try to implement some of these things into their own constitution. And of course, the best way to change something is to lead by good example. So when we manage to get Liberland fully operational, that will be the best way how to inflict some change, positive change in other countries.
How to Get Involved [47:28]
Bob Zadek: You have 600,000 citizens around the world. Now, I’m focusing on “around the world.” In what way is there any systematic way that 600,000 citizens of Liberland around the world can find each other? Do they meet? After all, they have lots in common even though they live all over the world. But what is the unifying forces that bring these 600,000 people together so they can at least know who each other is and they can talk about issues they have in common?
Vít Jedlička: Well, the key people are our representatives. If you go to Liberland.org, you are able to easily find who is representing Liberland in each country. And in some countries, we actually have a couple consulates. In United States, I think we have 12 now. So there are people that are responsible for pieces of the country, and they’re also responsible for putting together meetups. We do have also our e-residency app, which allows you to see where are the Liberlanders around you. So there are two ways. And the third way is, of course, Liberland has a forum where citizens and e-residents can openly discuss, and that is forum.liberland.org. So whoever becomes e-resident can actively open up the debate over there.
Bob Zadek: Have there been any—there are lots and lots and lots and lots of meetings around the world where countries are invited to participate, large meetings, small meetings and the like. Have you gotten to the point yet—because for sure you will—have you gotten to the point yet when you are on the list when in general there is a meeting of countries to do one thing or another, large topics and small, that you are also invited to send a representative?
Vít Jedlička: Yes, there are multiple of these events. Not too long ago, for example, I was in Mexico speaking at the same panel or at the same place like the President of Georgia, Saakashvili. I went to these high-level events where Prime Ministers like Horasis meeting and many others are, you know, many other meetings like that where for example Horasis where there is three Prime Ministers, six Ministers, and three heads of states, and I’m actually frequent attendant to these. And right now, I’m heading to Dubai for this high-level meeting. It’s called Dubaisummit.org, but it’s organized by Ritossa Family Office. And I can tell you many Ministers, ambassadors, and potentially also heads of states are coming there to present.
Bob Zadek: Well, I must say that when I asked you the questions I’ve asked you in this past hour together, I had a goal in mind. I had an agenda. And my goal was to help our audience and all those who subscribe to my podcast understand you are truly functioning in many ways as a country. You have worked very hard and very effectively to get from a theory which existed only in your brain to a country that carries on many, many, many of the functions of every other country, and you are moving in exactly the right direction in all those areas. So it is fascinating and is with great encouragement that I hope you continue that path because it’s quite dramatic.
Now, tell our friends how they can become citizens or at least get on the list to become citizens and how they can follow your work and the growth of Liberland.
Vít Jedlička: It really just takes minute or two to sign up for the e-residency. You just go to Liberland.org. You fill out a short questionnaire, and we get to know how you can best fit into what we’re doing as well. If you become e-resident, you actually go and you get an interview with one of our staff, and that’s the great and best way to start. And also please then visit us on our anniversary or on our Floating Man festival—great two events that are taking place in Liberland.
Bob Zadek: Thank you so much, Vít, and lots of luck for your continued growth and success. You’ve done a magnificent job so far, and every reason to think it’s going to continue. Thank you so much. This is Bob Zadek ending an hour with Vít Jedlička, who is the president and founder of Liberland. Thank you so much, and thanks a lot to Vít and to all my friends out there for spending a little time with us this Sunday morning.
Vít Jedlička: Thank you very much, Robert.