Not in all topics. I lived in 3 EU countries so far, and I'm preparing for another changes, probably the last one. I don't care about LGBT issues as it doesn't affect me. I mostly care about living standard, access to nature (parks, reservoirs, sea/mountains), high quality roads for motorcycling and IT infrastructure.
Countries I considered:
Malta - similar wages as in Poland, but smaller market, housing problem as in Germany, rent prices as in the UK. Great nature, I like nature.
Germany - language barrier, housing problems (in Berlin 30 people visit a house or flat to rent and landlord decides who will get it). Nice pay/(rent price + living costs) - I still could afford more in Berlin than in Bristol and Cardiff.
Austria - language barrier (not really German), even when job offer and interview is in English, job requires fluent German, as everyone in the office speaks German, so you don't want to be alienated at the very beginning.
Switzerland - extremely high living costs, you won't be able to afford to buy a flat/house after 5years of living there, I felt really poor when I realized I will financially struggle even to move there and rent a flat for few first months.
France, Paris - visited it and that's a no-go zone for me. Couldn't buy a ticket at international train station in English and German as cashiers speak only French. City is a ruin after allowing all refugees live on a street.
Now, I'm looking into Japan, Australia, Canada and Czech Republic. As op said, you're always dealing one bag of shit for another.
> France, Paris - visited it and that's a no-go zone for me. Couldn't buy a ticket at international train station in English and German as cashiers speak only French.
Huh. I've lived in Paris for two years, freelancing, and I'm still not fluent in French. I get by just fine. Train tickets: I've never had that problem with cashiers, but you can always use a machine or buy a ticket online - there's always an English option. Same with ATMs, public transportation, etc.
> City is a ruin after allowing all refugees live on a street.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Refugees were mainly around Stalingrad metro station in northeastern Paris. The camp was cleared out a few days ago and people were sent to more proper accommodation. Probably people will set up camp around there again. If seeing refugees bothers you, I suggest you simply avoid that particular little part of this massive city. It doesn't make Paris a "ruin".
> France, Paris - visited it and that's a no-go zone for me. Couldn't buy a ticket at international train station in English and German as cashiers speak only French. City is a ruin after allowing all refugees live on a street.
What the fuck. I have been living in Paris for a couple of years and those are insane issues to have.
I have not seen an increase in the number of homeless people in the street (which is not too say that there are no homeless people in France)
All the automatic ticket machines can display their text in english.
The state of the city is roughly the same as it was when I arrived.
I think that would work, locking yourself to a certain area of a city just to avoid seeing rest of the city. I would not like that. I didn't like Paris because of that, and that's my final opinion.
I can't pretend to know the whole city but no I am not locked in any particular area.
Of course there are shitty parts in the city (and even more just outside of it) but I have not seen any huge change this past year
Seems most of your problems seem to stem from the fact that you are too lazy to learn the language of the country you want to move to. From your offensive tone with regards to the refugees I get the impression you would still be the kind of person to moan about immigrants not speaking english in the US too though, right?!
English* is not my native language, I was taught Germany at school, I lived there it was OK. I wanted to move to the UK, I learnt the language mostly myself. I don't have any more that much time and energy to learn Austrian dialect of German or remind German again. Yea, I'm lazy, but I can communicate in 3 languages.
Hey, I'm an Austrian and I'm sitting here in an office with a bunch of Eastern Europeans who have a hard time understanding my dialect. When things get rough, we just switch to English. Problem solved ;)
Bit of a weird statement. There are a lot of countries in the world and plenty of them do far better than the US on these issues.