
Estonia is a place for independent minds - lelf
https://estonia.ee/
======
chpmrc
I think the winning move would be to establish English as the second official
language. Hell, the EU should adopt English as the main language. I believe
one of the growth factors of many Eastern and Central European countries is
the widespread proficiency in it. I was impressed to find many interviews of
Estonian politicians speaking it fluently.

(I'm not a native speaker and I've never nor do I currently live in an English
speaking country, I just think this is the best and most practical way to
start decreasing fragmentation in the EU market).

~~~
fwip
Might be a hard sell to convince the EU to switch to English as the English
are leaving.

~~~
99052882514569
In fact it's an easier sell, isn't it? You're not adopting a language of one
of the 4 major members, you're adopting the first language of a small member
on the periphery (Ireland) that happens to be a second language of so many
Europeans that no other European language comes close.

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gringoDan
Far and away the best government website I've ever seen.

I've heard of Estonian e-residency before, but have never met anyone who
actually took advantage of it. I'd be interested to know people's personal
experiences with the program.

~~~
dontbenebby
From what I've read it seems to be geared towards people with an online
business who wants access to the EU financial markets.

I'd love to see them consider granting visas for digital nomads. Most people
don't know that it's technically illegal to work on a tourist visa (even
remotely).

It would be really cool to have a _legal_ way to draw a paycheck from one's
home country while exploring the EU.

Estonia would benefit from such an arrangement since your tax residency would
be Estonian (and thus you'd pay taxes on the salary you draw to the Estonian
government) - all without taking away any jobs from EU citizens, and even
creating a few. (Ex: paying for hotels/apts, restaurants, evenings out etc)

~~~
ohples
That would be cool, we could even make our own little neighborhood or
something in some city.

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lelf
HN hug of death.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20190416183148/https://estonia.e...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190416183148/https://estonia.ee/)

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auvi
The link is down for me :(

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ostap0207
[https://e-estonia.com/](https://e-estonia.com/) I like this site even more.
With such projects as Reporting 3.0, Healthcare 4.0, Industry 4.0 you can see
how the country is run as a startup.

Estonia also has Startup Visa, which helps non-EU founders to start their
startup in Estonia
([https://www.startupestonia.ee/visa](https://www.startupestonia.ee/visa)).

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duxup
Independent minds, but not websties that can handle HN...

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ravenstine
HN effect? Site's not loading for me.

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thatfrenchguy
Ah yes, Estonia, that great place that have 6% of their population who are
stateless citizens based on ethnic politics, which strips those people who
lived their entire life there of their EU citizen rights as well.

~~~
banach
Could you provide some references?

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ericcholis
Anecdotally, I can say that there is a strong distrust of Russians stemming
from the various occupation of Baltic states as recently as 1991. [1]

[1] Source: My wife's estonian grandparents

~~~
passing_through
I wouldn't say this is necessarily true in younger generations. I grew up with
kids from Russian families in school & kindergarten and the distrust of
Russians instilled in you by your parents quickly fades.

Older generations are a bit more problematic in this regard. I would say
there's a general hate towards older Russians that still can't speak Estonian,
even from younger generations.

However, I would say Russians are generally disadvantaged in Estonia and
that's a big source of issues. In my childhood, younger Russians tended to be
poorer and therefore were more involved in various criminal activities. Most
of my friends and I were afraid of Russians in our area, as they liked to pick
fights and generally mess with you.

