Side note: I've had one or two responses on this blog which use rude language. They will be deleted. You can disagree with me as much as you would like, so long as you're civil about it. I also don't give warnings if I'm going to delete something. Litmus test: if you're not sure, don't post. How hard can it be to be civil?
More countries are recognizing that ignoring their expats is not just. I've mentioned before that it's frustrating to me that expat interests are generally ignored by the US government. As it turns out, France and Italy don't have that problem as they have MPs to represent their foreign constituencies.
While Italy has had this for years,
France has done this relatively recently.
Until recently, France was like the UK in simply disenfranchising citizens after they had lived abroad a certain period. This is far worse than the US, but now they're taking positive steps to address a changing, more interconnected world. I would love to see something like this for US expats, but I doubt it will happen any time soon (and I'm unsure if our Constitution would allow this, particularly since
expats are not counted in the Census).
More often than not however are the 'lost' expats such as myself - an expat from the UK and a resident of the UAE. I have been disenfranchised from the former and have precious little rights in the latter.
ReplyDeleteAt least I don't owe anyone tax.