Brain Drain From Britain Delivers Financial Boon to Estonia

11/09/2021

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Stephen Castle | New York Times

At first Vicky Brock struggled to place Estonia on the map. And when she flew to the Baltic nation last December, she took just hand luggage, assuming it would be a short trip.

Eleven months later Ms. Brock, a British technology entrepreneur, is still there, living and working in the former Soviet satellite state as what she calls a “Brexit refugee.”

Ms. Brock split her Scotland-based start-up and set up half of it to operate in Estonia, a country of 1.3 million people that is welcoming companies looking to escape the tangle of regulations and financial obstacles that Brexit imposes on British firms doing business in Europe.

Several thousand other company leaders have done the same, some physically moving like Ms. Brock but most staying in Britain while shifting their business registration to Estonia. By doing so, they can take advantage of the country’s membership in the European Union and therefore gain something Britain has lost: free access to the bloc’s giant single market of more than 400 million people.

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