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Aye
Aye
Senators, the voting has ended.
Results:
Aye - 
Ashlawn, 
Cerdenia, Dendrobium, Emazia, 
Ermica, Pap sculgief, 
Sevae, 
Toerana V
Nay - None
Abstain - None
This means the Amendments to L.R. 031 have passed.
We have now begun debating on the Non-Agression Pact Between The Republic of Europeia and Thaecia as submitted by Prime Minister 
The Islamic Country of Honour.
WHEREAS Europeia and Thaecia have a shared culture of friendship and cooperation;
WHEREAS Europeia and Thaecia wish to continue building our relationship;
NOW, THEREFORE, Europeia and Thaecia agree to the following:
Europeia will recognize only the legitimate government of Thaecia, as determined by Thaecian law, as representative of the Region and People of Thaecia.
Thaecia will recognize only the legitimate government of Europeia, as determined by Europeian law, as representative of the Region and People of Europeia.
Neither Signatory may cede sovereign control of their region to another entity.
Neither Thaecia nor Europeia will engage in military hostilities against the other, or against one another's protectorates which have been established by regional law and communicated to the other signatory. Participation by Thaecia and Europeia on opposite sides of a military engagement that does not constitute an attack on either region or a region's protectorate shall not be considered "military hostilities against the other" for this purpose.
Each Signatory shall maintain off-site embassies with one another, consistent with facilities provided to other treatied allies.
Neither Signatory will engage in espionage against the other. For this purpose, "espionage" is the act of engaging a person to act under false pretenses in a Signatory region without the permission of that region's legitimate government.
The Signatories each shall provide information to the other if such information is pertinent to the other region's security or well-being, or otherwise upon the other's reasonable request, unless the party in possession of such information reasonably believes that providing that information might violate applicable laws or contravene the terms of service for NationStates or a regional communications platform, or when revealing that information would unduly compromise that party's source(s) of information. Both signatories shall endeavor to reveal as much as possible in such situations, but not more than they can under laws, terms of service, or the need to protect sources.
Each Signatory should make it a violation of its internal laws to engage in espionage against the other if a similar or related law to the same effect does not already exist.
Neither Thaecia nor Europeia will deliberately engage in recruitment from the other, nor from one another's protectorates which have been established by regional law and communicated to the other signatory. "Recruitment" is defined as the sending of telegrams on the NationStates site to encourage nations to move regions.
This Treaty will come into force on the date of ratification by both Europeia and Thaecia as dictated by their respective governing procedures.
Either Signatory reserves the right to exit this Treaty. The exiting Signatory must notify the other as soon as possible.
This agreement may be amended by mutual agreement of both Signatories.
Upon ratification, this treaty shall be the sole bilateral treaty between Thaecia and Europeia, superseding any prior written documents describing a relationship between the regions.
I am obviously in support of this as I love both regions and am happy that we're finally codifying our relationship. To alleviate some possible concerns:
Firstly, this non-aggression pact doesn't in any way undermine our sovereignty: the things codified there we have already done before: haven't spied on Europeia, haven't attacked it or its allies, haven't recruited from them, etc. Europeia hasn't spied on us either or done any of the above. This would only ensure that they wouldn't do that to us in the future and neither would we, without changing the Thaecian identity or anything like that.
Now to the main part: why do we need this NAP? Well, firstly, Europeia is one of the biggest User Created Regions, and it would benefit us interregionally to have a treaty with them. Not only would the very name of Europeia elevate our reputation among non-defender regions - among defender regions, this would also increase our influence - an already established region of Thaecia having a NAP with Europeia would be a big thing and would make them want to, in turn, deepen ties with us and get our attention, and this would ultimately give us more influence among Defenders and Independents alike. This wouldn't do the opposite and alienate them - here, just look at TEP who has a treaty with Europeia and with Defender regions, and has influence in both spheres.
Of course there is another reason for this NAP - simply that we have many double citizens and have already cooperated culturally as well. It just is a logical step forward in our relationship with another region we have quite a lot in common with already (not to mention the military operations we have done together).
Finally, this NAP could also help us change Europeia's ways - knowing that we have a NAP, Europeia would cooperate with us even more, and might even participate in defending operations with us eventually (especially given that this NAP might be upgraded to a full treaty as well). Of course this is a long shot, but a NAP would definitely help us more in this endeavour than doing nothing - Europeia's only Unaligned ally is The East Pacific right now, and having more unaligned allies could certainly shift them more to our sphere.
Of course I'm a double citizen myself, but I believe in what I said as a Thaecian - I do not doubt this would be mutually beneficial.
Content-wise, this is very similar to the Thaecia-TEP treaty ratified last year so I have no problem on that front - we aren’t giving up sovereignty and this a treaty to work with Europeia not compete with them.
I feel that working with a region like Europeia is an opportunity we should take, and this NAP provides a vantage point to further the relationship we have. I have no problem with this and intend to support
doesn't do anything anyways, no much point in debating this
As I was the author of IFE (which we wrote partially encouraged by this), and I was pretty much the most active Thaecian in the treaty debate I feel I have a right to speak here.
It very much does do something. Alone, it guarantees that we won't be engaging in any hostile actions with Europeia- read it, it restricts recruitment, espionage, and raiding hostilities. While we wouldn't do that anyway, it is a good thing to have a guarantee for both ends of friendship and mutual relations between our regions. I don't see how you can say it doesn't do much, when it very much does enforce several things.
Additionally, the treaty also provides a very good standpoint for future relations with Europeia. This treaty is something that Europeia pretty much requires for future cooperation, and I am very excited to work with them- I like them, they're cool people, and you already know my thoughts about getting big embassies and relations and the like, but Europeia I am genuinely passionate about.
This treaty opens a very large number of doors for us for future relations with EIA and I certainly believe it should be passed because of the great FA implications it can and will have.
For the text of treaty: No Issues with the Text, reads like a fairly run of the mill Non Aggression Pact
For Everything Else: For the record, I'm not someone who does much work in Foreign Affairs, the extent of my experience has been passive ambassadorships to usually defender aligned regions.
It's Europeia, it has a patchy history in R/D, and I'm getting concerned as to the Foreign Affairs direction of this administration.
We seem to be trying to become allies and open embassies with everyone, even when it comes with severe lapses in judgement which move us closer to open embassies with regions that contact OOC banned individuals.
Since December, we have opened embassies with Defender Aligned Regions like the Rejected Realms, XKI and our continued relationship with the League, while simultaneously opening consulates and beginning relations with Independents, some who lean very much into the raider side, just without an official declaration of ideology.
I am confused as to where we attempting to go here, are we trying to be friends with everyone? This is undoubtedly an interesting policy, but I am very concerned that if another TNP-TSP altercation occurs that Thaecia could be stuck in the middle of it, especially if the back channels between the two opposing sides fail to produce results. For those unaware of what I'm on about, TNP a little while ago did a Quorum raid run on regions supporting a proposal to Repeal "Liberate CCD" - When the RRA and SPSF, among others, countered this, TNP borderline accused them of being fascists and fascist sympathizers. If Thaecia had maintained embassies/partnerships with both regions during this time period, I'm concerned as to how the government will be able to deal with these situations if it becomes a large problem. We are further entangling ourselves in a complex web of alliances and embassies with a wide range of regions and ideologies, which would make it hard for us to do anything except say nothing when our allies are fighting, at risk of loosing one of them.
Onto Europeia itself. They have an interesting history in R/D. Most recently, their participation in the raid of The Embassy, which saw the destruction of a prominent inter-regional community that, well, an awful lot of people cared deeply about. While it appears that their leadership received backlash for participation, it has been argued that the destruction of an interregional hub was not "griefing" - Words of our own President, and therefore is okay. Naturally, I think is a silly notion.
Onto the notion that we can somehow change their R/D. Europeia has exponentially more experience than Thaecia when it comes to R/D. It is incredibly, and I believe unrealistically, optimistic to assume that we could have a shot at changing their R/D stance. It would take some serious leg work alongside our allies in TEP to do so, and is not something that I believe will happen in the next 6 months to a year, minimum, especially due to them having significantly longer, older, and more influential allies that share a closer R/D philosophy to them. Thaecia is ultimately insignificant and small when it comes to their other existing allies. I am moreso concerned about the effect that Europeia will have on our R/D stance. We are currently very much Independent, we raid about as much as we defend. Thaecian liberators are common at big libs, but so are tag runs and their counters in detags. We do everything fairly actively, while Europeia leans heavily into the occupation side of things. We have already seen Europeia begin to influence the Thaempirial Army, with the primary motivation behind our participation being to please Europeia. While our Indie status means that we are obviously going to participate in an occupation here and there, participation for the near sole purpose of pleasing a larger region is not something that feels great. We're Thaecia - not a region of pillers for some ally to call in when they can't gather enough support at home.
Something else I am going to point out is that we only share consulates with Europeia, not fully fledged embassies and yet are leaping to a NAP. This strikes me as a bit odd, but this is apparently how Europeia operates, but I would be more comfortable with a step like this (in general, not necessarily specific to Europeia) if we at least had a decent stretch of time of being embassy partners, exchanging reports, participating in jointly organized raids/libs etc, before we sign a treaty of any kind. Alongside this, there is much that the general citizenry doesn't know about Europeia or its community, having had very little time to interact with the other side via the medium of cultural events, joint listening/film watching sessions like we recently saw with FNR and others.
In credit to Europeia, they did recently pass a bill mandating a policy, in which contains some form of anti griefing policy, showing progress, but this appeared to be as a result of internal backlash, not external pressure on the part of their allies, still showing how it is likely pointless for Thaecia to try and push Europeia in any direction without strong support from its larger allies.
TL;DR: Europeia Bad, NAP Bad, Thaecia should become an epic hard core defender isolationist region with, er, screw it, a Monarch!
I would honestly like to see examples. Naturally, OOC banned individuals are a huge no-no but OOC moderation is one thing that Europeia excels at, and this NAP would only increase the reputation of our OOC moderation, given our history with it.
Now to the point about "everyone". Yes, you can raise questions about this administration's foreign policy, and they're fair at times. But Europeia is different, it's not just "everyone". We have done many military things with them (which you oppose, fine, but that is part of sharing a special relationship). In addition, there was a Europeia/Thaecia week back in summer that was a huge success. We have had many dual citizens as I said, including currently me, Andy, Vor, Taungu, ICH, formerly Maowi, Brousty, even Marv, earlier Nate. Taungu is now a deputy minister of World Assembly Affairs under me and Maowi in Europeia, Andy is an Ensign in their Navy, I'm obviously a senator here, Maowi was an MP, Nate ran for MP - the point is, we have a whole lot in common, and most of the "general citizenry" is familiar with Europeia.
Okay, you make a large point here so I'll just answer to it here.
Firstly you say we aren't a region of pilers - and you're absolutely right. Which is why it only makes sense that someone who we've already piled with, Europeia, now would be connected to us via a NAP, which means we didn't pile for nothing, and the piling actually advanced our foreign policy. That's what regions usually do - I'm sure TRR has also piled on a Liberation lead by allies - and would be reluctant to pile on a Liberation not lead by allies. This NAP only serves to show that our foreign policy does make sense and have a purpose. From all I heard in the halls of Europeia, there's an impression that Thaecia is a very important region, and we wouldn't have achieved that recognition without piling with them. On the other hand, we've shown that we aren't to be taken for granted by piling on operations against Europeia as well, again achieving recognition.
Just listen to the words "Pact of Non-Aggression". It doesn't mean that we're selling our forces to Europeia, it means that Europeia recognises that we're a force to be reckoned with, and we recognise them. It makes sense - they need us and we need them. Why do we need them? Well, imagine this doesn't pass. The Independent sphere will obviously refuse to work with us, and we're left with Defenders only. We become just another Defender region in a sphere that wouldn't let us have lots of influence because all of it is already taken. They have XKI, TRR, TSP, TGW - we'll be reduced to just pilers, something you actually fear. On the other hand, if this does pass, we'll still have a sphere of our own, only sharing the fame with TEP and a couple of not-so-well-known regions (not even FNR as they've joined the PfS and become yet another Defender region nobody really knows about).
And granted, Europeia has a history of mistakes, but that's just another thing we share with them. We forgive their past mistakes, they forgive ours - that's how FA works and is supposed to work.
As for a possible conflict between the two sides we're allied with - sure, it can happen, I won't deny. We could just stay silent in that case, that would make most sense, as you said. You don't have to choose, what's the point? If an ally would break ties with us because we were silent - well, good riddance, they're not a good ally in that case, especially since they know our situation where we can't support either side. Has anyone ever broken ties with Switzerland because of their neutrality? Not that I have heard of, even though Switzerland did do some questionable things, which we won't.
As for changing Europeia's policy, well, I did say that it's a long shot, and the only thing I said is that it's better than not passing this NAP - a rather obvious point you probably can't refute, and as I said before, not passing this would bury all our chances of changing their ways, also quite obviously.
I know I probably haven't managed to convince Bow as it's close to impossible, but I hope to have shined even more light on things!
Andusre, Brototh, The Islamic Country of Honour, and Dendrobium
Hello Senators, sorry for the delay (an explanation is given in #senate of Thaecord). With that in mind,
From the perspective of the leader of our military, I do not view this is not a bad thing. We simply have no reason to declare an ideology on the R/D spectrum. On the one hand, we have no interest in becoming raiders because we have friends in Defender regions; on the other, we have no interest in becoming defenders because we stand gain both domestically and in FA from raiding here & there. Our unaligned status allows us the flexibility to do whatever we want, to advance Thaecian interests across the wider NS world, and to forge strong relationships with other regions who seek to co-operate with us - defender or raider. We don't need to declare an ideology, we don't want to declare an ideology, so we won't.
To your concerns about being caught in the middle of a battle between two opposing sides of R/D, I think that's a valid concern and it's one I too have thought about. However, such situations are not impossible to navigate. The Free Nations Region, which has diplomatic ties to both The North Pacific and The South Pacific, managed to handle that sensitive diplomatic situation in a way which kept both sides "at bay", and they retain their relationship with both feeders. These crises can be overcome, even if we find ourselves in the middle of two battling sides.
"received backlash for participation" is quite the understatement :p The internal backlash against the ERN's participation in The Embassy raid felled the incumbent Europeian president Pichtonia, who lost re-election to Calvin Coolidge. Couple this with the changing of ERN policy on embassy closures (particularly in tags & occupations) and I believe your concerns about this raid should be alleviated. Also, consider that one of the main reasons defenders gave for not trying to liberate Equestria was because the ERN-led hold with participation from the NPA, EPSA & TEA meant the region and its natives would not be subject to griefing.
I can understand all things you have said in this quoted post, apart from this one. This, and I apologise for the bluntness, is absolute nonsense :p As Seva said above we have proven multiple times to Europeia that we are our own region which will not unquestioningly and blindly follow their call to arms in any R/D activity. For example: we liberated the hold in North Africa which the ERN was piling in. And, hell, at today's minor update we liberated Japan - which, again the ERN was piling in! As far as I am aware, Europeia respects our unaligned/independent status and our right to self-determination. I think that mutual respect for each other's R/D priorities has been and will continue to be a key pillar of the Thaecia-Europeia relationship as it continues to grow & flourish.
Europeia attended both iterations of the Late Nite Festival and they hosted us for a Region of the Week back in 2020. Granted there may be more room for this sort of cultural co-operation than there has already been so far, but that much is up to the MoFA & Culture Ministry.
Alright well moving on from this topic, how does the Honourable Senator feel about the Regulation of Yogurt Viscosity Act?
serious time: pls can we vote now
Senators, we have begun voting on the Non-Agression Pact Between The Republic of Europeia and Thaecia.
WHEREAS Europeia and Thaecia have a shared culture of friendship and cooperation;
WHEREAS Europeia and Thaecia wish to continue building our relationship;
NOW, THEREFORE, Europeia and Thaecia agree to the following:
Europeia will recognize only the legitimate government of Thaecia, as determined by Thaecian law, as representative of the Region and People of Thaecia.
Thaecia will recognize only the legitimate government of Europeia, as determined by Europeian law, as representative of the Region and People of Europeia.
Neither Signatory may cede sovereign control of their region to another entity.
Neither Thaecia nor Europeia will engage in military hostilities against the other, or against one another's protectorates which have been established by regional law and communicated to the other signatory. Participation by Thaecia and Europeia on opposite sides of a military engagement that does not constitute an attack on either region or a region's protectorate shall not be considered "military hostilities against the other" for this purpose.
Each Signatory shall maintain off-site embassies with one another, consistent with facilities provided to other treatied allies.
Neither Signatory will engage in espionage against the other. For this purpose, "espionage" is the act of engaging a person to act under false pretenses in a Signatory region without the permission of that region's legitimate government.
The Signatories each shall provide information to the other if such information is pertinent to the other region's security or well-being, or otherwise upon the other's reasonable request, unless the party in possession of such information reasonably believes that providing that information might violate applicable laws or contravene the terms of service for NationStates or a regional communications platform, or when revealing that information would unduly compromise that party's source(s) of information. Both signatories shall endeavor to reveal as much as possible in such situations, but not more than they can under laws, terms of service, or the need to protect sources.
Each Signatory should make it a violation of its internal laws to engage in espionage against the other if a similar or related law to the same effect does not already exist.
Neither Thaecia nor Europeia will deliberately engage in recruitment from the other, nor from one another's protectorates which have been established by regional law and communicated to the other signatory. "Recruitment" is defined as the sending of telegrams on the NationStates site to encourage nations to move regions.
This Treaty will come into force on the date of ratification by both Europeia and Thaecia as dictated by their respective governing procedures.
Either Signatory reserves the right to exit this Treaty. The exiting Signatory must notify the other as soon as possible.
This agreement may be amended by mutual agreement of both Signatories.
Upon ratification, this treaty shall be the sole bilateral treaty between Thaecia and Europeia, superseding any prior written documents describing a relationship between the regions.
My vote is Aye.
Aye
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