The Lucky Microstates

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

Microstates are very small independent countries usually functioning in close, but voluntary, association with their respective larger neighbour or neighbours. Jurisdictions with little territory and a small population, they nevertheless share most of the features of larger states, including sovereignty and international recognition.

The political science literature on microstates demonstrates, in the words of the late Austrian economist and philosopher Leopold Kohr, that “small is beautiful.” But paradoxically, small may also be safe, as Europe’s microstates of Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, and San Marino have shown. The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is also sometimes referred to as a microstate, but at 576,000 people, it is far larger than the others.

These states have been autonomous or independent for most of their centuries-long history and were rarely attacked. They were situated in places offering shelter from invasion, and all but Monaco are landlocked. As a result, political and military powers left them alone.

But that by itself would not have sufficed. For centuries, a combination of political skill, resilience and even luck allowed them to survive Europe’s political conflicts.

As Barry Bartmann pointed out in an article published in 2013, “If the microstates had not entered into unequal alliances with larger neighbours, they most probably would have simply disappeared from the political map of Europe. In fact, their continual presence was widely perceived as a ‘historical accident.’”

The Principality of Andorra, population 85,000, a feudal remnant high in the Pyrenees, has been a separate polity since 1278, under the joint rule of French and Spanish overlords. Since 1993 Andorra has been a parliamentary democracy, but it maintains two co-princes, one being France’s elected head of state, currently Francois Holland, and the other being the Spanish Bishop of Urgell, Joan Enric Vives i Sicília.

The Principality of Liechtenstein, population almost 37,000, was created in 1719 as a fief for the wealthy Austrian House of Liechtenstein. Owing to its geographic position between Austria and Switzerland, it was not swallowed up during the unification of Germany in the 19th century. Prince Hans-Adam II is the current monarch.

The Principality of Monaco on the French Riviera has been ruled by the House of Grimaldi since the 13th century, and achieved full independence in 1860. Its 37,000 people are led by Prince Albert II.

The Republic of San Marino is the oldest surviving sovereign state and constitutional republic in the world. Founded in 301, it is the last survivor of a large number of self-governing Italian communes from the Middle Ages. Its 31,000 citizens survived the unification of Italy in the 19th century, largely owing to its remote location in a valley of the Apennines.

San Marino has two heads of state, from different political parties, known as the Captains Regent, elected every six months by the the country's parliament. The two current occupants are Massimo Andrea Ugolini and Gian Nicola Berti.

The Second World War was challenging for these states. Andorra, situated between Francisco Franco’s fascist Spain and the pro-Nazi Vichy government in France, managed to remain neutral and was an important smuggling route from Spain into France. The French Resistance used the country as part of their route to get downed airmen out of France.

In 1919, Liechtenstein and Switzerland signed a treaty under which Switzerland assumed responsibility for Liechtenstein's diplomacy and defense.

Although Liechtenstein, like Switzerland, remained largely unaffected by the war, the conflict resulted in the royal family losing its possessions in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. After the war, Czechoslovakia and Poland considered these lands German property and took possession of them.

Monaco remained neutral, and after the Nazi occupation of France, Monaco’s Prince Louis II expressed his support for the German-backed Vichy regime. The Italians, however, invaded the country first in 1940 and then again in 1942.

Later in the war, Nazi troops ousted the Italians and occupied Monaco in turn. Allied troops liberated the country in 1944.

San Marino, too, remained neutral, though surrounded by Benito Mussolini’s fascist Italy. However, it was the target of a British bombing raid in 1944 and was briefly occupied by first the Germans and later the Allies that year, but soon was returned to local control.

Given the enormity of the European conflict, all four of these polities survived fairly well, despite their Lilliputian size.