Yes, it is, and I thought so too from the info available online - but the reality is rather different. I had a hard line of £10k to spend on exploring immigration exploration there including paying a lawyer - and when that money was gone with no progress, I cut my losses.
As to where instead, others have suggested Portugal, Romania, Poland - Portugal is nice, but get talking to locals and there’s a problem with corruption around business ownership and ensuing audits, etc., Romania has a really big corruption problem, and there’s not much happening outside of Cluj and Bucharest, and Poland has the same kind of politics that I’m hoping to leave behind in the UK. Natural beauty and quality of life were big pluses for NZ.
I’ve also explored Latin America to little avail (the ground situation is rather different to the paper one - huge black markets in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, brewing social unrest), and am now looking seriously at Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania- although again, all three are hardening their stance against non-EU migrants, which I will be come March next, and have similar nationalist movements to elsewhere.
As to where instead, others have suggested Portugal, Romania, Poland - Portugal is nice, but get talking to locals and there’s a problem with corruption around business ownership and ensuing audits, etc., Romania has a really big corruption problem, and there’s not much happening outside of Cluj and Bucharest, and Poland has the same kind of politics that I’m hoping to leave behind in the UK. Natural beauty and quality of life were big pluses for NZ.
I’ve also explored Latin America to little avail (the ground situation is rather different to the paper one - huge black markets in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, brewing social unrest), and am now looking seriously at Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania- although again, all three are hardening their stance against non-EU migrants, which I will be come March next, and have similar nationalist movements to elsewhere.