Enjoy a drink? Then head to Spain – the most libertarian place in Europe

The dreaded phrase ‘Nanny State’ is often used to deride certain rules, laws and policies designed to mollycoddle the populace and strip citizens of their agency for free thought and actions…

The UK is fast becoming a Nanny State, many believe, while the whole of Scandinavia is regularly tarred with that label. And despite these countries enjoying strong economies and high standards of living, they are sometimes perceived as – well – maybe just a tad dull and controlling.

Indeed, the European Policy Information Center (EPICENTER) has created a Nanny State Index to show just how far European nations go in their level of government control.

And the results from the latest index are fascinating, not least because they serve to underline long-held stereotypes. The index showed that Finland, Sweden, the UK and Ireland really are the ‘worst’ when it comes to nannying policies, while many former Soviet nations are – unsurprisingly – the most ‘live and let live’.

The index rated nations on their free-market and libertarian ideals across a range of factors, such as alcohol, healthcare, food and smoking. According to the ranking, Spain has the most carefree attitude towards alcohol on the continent, with duty-free wine, low taxes on spirits and beer, and no statutory closing time for bars, pubs and clubs making it the best place in Europe for those who enjoy a drink.

The same was true for food, with Spaniards’ relaxed attitude to dining late, eating all manner of foodstuffs and a general laissez faire attitude towards pesky health and safety making it the ‘freest’ country when it comes to consumption.

Overall, however, Spain ranked in the bottom half, with the Czech Republic the ‘freest’ nation of them all, followed somewhat surprisingly by Germany.

“Most of the taxes, laws and regulations covered in the Nanny State Index (NSI) were introduced on the grounds of ‘public health’,” said the report. Which is rather strange when one considers that Spain delivers the second-highest average life expectancy in the world after Japan.

The report went on: “The big picture is that there is no correlation between nanny state regulation and higher life expectancy.”

So there you have it: the governments do not really know what they are doing, so eat, drink, be merry and live a long and fulfilling life under the Spanish sunshine.