Pushing a Pebble Down a Hill

[Delt]

Badenburg, Gehenna
Office of the Archchancellor

The highest officials of the Gehennan Reich sat around the long wooden table which still appeared pristine despite it being from the late 13th century. At one end sat the Archchanellor and at the other sat the Kaiser. Between them at both sides sat the necessary ministers. The morning sun illuminated the room which had all of the modern luxuries situated among centuries-old paintings and artifacts.

"What does His Grace think?" asked the Minister of Finance.

Until this point the Kaiser had remained silent in the meeting. This was not unlike him, however. The Kaiser Josef II liked his ministers to do the talking while he listened and debated the points in his own head. The Kaiser of Gehenna still holds considerable power in the Reich but it has been the tradition to use this power sparingly as this has allowed the Kaiser to retain some power. If he so chose he could end this meeting and dissolve the Reichstag in order to block anything that could come from this email they were discussing. But Josef wouldn't think of doing something so chaotic, in fact he was supportive of it. "If I must weigh in then I support this proposed convention. My father, his father, and his father before that fought tirelessly to keep all aspects of Gehennan sovereignty, to hold onto our great past, and to hold onto our designs on the future." the Kaiser stopped talking and began to refill his glass of water before proceeding to take a sip. The room sat in complete silence as the Kaiser still held their undivided attention. "With each passing year Gehennas claims and designs on the content move further away as they pass well outside of living memory. Perhaps it is time that we allow ourselves to strengthen ties with the rest of the continent."

A couple of the ministers looked noticeably upset at the position of the Kaiser. Had the Kaiser sided with them they would have tied the room and given that the Kaiser would have sided with them, this would have ended there. Now, though, the supporters had a solid majority.

"I suppose that settles it then." Spoke Archchancellor Wiesel. "We will express our interest to the concerned parties."

[Flo]

Essig, West Brigidna
Tolven, 1598

Essig Castle was the site of the event. The structure, a relic from a bygone era of horses and bows, was now a tourist attraction, with large ballrooms and chambers. It was well maintained and restored to keep the look and feel of the original structure as it was built while also featuring more modern amenities -- after all, few would be interested in using a chamber pot in 1598.

The Essig Conference, as it was called, featured representatives from nations across the continent. The official list was as follows:

Aurentine
Eskkya
Gehenna
Holy Lanlanian Empire
Kave
Lomarre
Mordvania
Nerysia
Ostland
Saamo S.R.
Severyane
Valland
Varenthia
West Brigidna

These fourteen states would then meet and discuss a multitude of matters. It was an ambitious event, and all attending were uncertain of what results there would be, if any at all. Still, they arrived over the course of a week and would soon begin meeting.

[Flo]

Essig Castle
Essig, West Brigidna
Tolven, 1598

It took quite a while for everyone to arrive, with all the pomp and circumstance surrounding an event like this, and a few days after the event had officially "began" each of the delegations finally sat down at a large, grand table, to begin the conference at long last. 

They had already had some opportunity to mingle, as there had been dinners in the preceding days while the slow-comers still arrived, but this was the first time they all were in the room together. This is where the fun would begin. 

A large table was in the center of an even larger study, though with all the lower level aides, diplomats, and translators, it felt cramped and tight. At the head of the table were the West Brigidnans, and in clockwise order starting from them were each delegation in alphabetical order, beginning with the Aurentine delegation and ending with the Varenthians.

Chief negotiator for the West Brigidnan Union, a Mr. Edmund Lisle, a middle-aged diplomat from Florinthus who had been a critical negotiator in the currency agreements in the WBEA and a contributor to the development of the WBU itself, spoke

"I welcome you all to Essig Castle. We have much to discuss, as I am sure you are aware. I will be keeping things on topic and ensuring we hear from all who need to be heard. I will remind everyone that the chief topics at play here are the easing of travel restrictions, general economic cooperation, and the relaxation of visa policies."

He paused. "West Brigidna sees this meeting as the first of many. There is great potential in this continent, and we wish to see it fulfilled. Together we can do more than any of us could do alone. We seek to see what we can do together."

"So, we would like to discuss the prospect of a student visa program to allow students to travel freely between member states of the program. We ask the Nerysian delegation for comments."

[Nentsia]

Gaiseric Dubius listened attentively to the words of Edmund Lisle. He felt the eyes of the Nerysian staff burning in his back. Dubius felt highly uncomfortable in this position as negotiator. I'm not a diplomat, he thought to himself. He was however pleased with the preparations. Aside from his position as chief negotiator, he was also in charge of a secret joint intelligence unit of the Nerysian foreign and military intelligence services, which focussed entirely on the WBU. Dubius Bureau, it was called.

The Nerysian embassy staff had swollen with some 50 people in the past weeks, all of them working for Dubius Bureau. Some of them were technical and cyber specialists, operating interception equipment stationed inside the Nerysian embassy to eavesdrop other embassies and the WBU government buildings. Other officers had been reserving rooms in hotels used by other diplomatic delegations at the conference, planting bugging devices inside the hotel rooms of other diplomats or their staff. At the headquarters in Nerysia, all the Foreign Operations departments on the countries that attended this conference forwarded their relevant materials to the Dubius Bureau, keeping him as informed as possible. Especially Gehenna and Severyane were major targets.

Dubius was surprised to received the first turn to speak from Lisle and needed some time to shuffle his papers before he began. His thin lips almost completely vanished, his wrinkled face seemed made out of steel, and his left eye-brow rose even further up than it already did - giving him a permanent look of utter skepticism.

''I... I want to thank you Mr. Lisle, and the WBU for bringing us all together. I came here because the Nerysian government believes Brigidna as a whole could gain a lot from more cooperation. But we need cooperation for a specific purpose. Not cooperation for the sake of cooperation. The Nerysian government believes that one such purpose should be regional security. I sincerely hope there is support from the other delegations here to discuss the possibilities for increased regional cooperation to enhance the security of all participating states...''

''As far as student visas are concerned, we are in favor of establishing a regional system to ease the exchanges of students. Limits should apply however. But in principle, it is a good idea. We have almost 3 million students in Nerysia. It would be good for their development, and our society as a result, if some of them would get the chance to study abroad. Naturally, quid pro quo. We are willing to welcome foreign students in return.''

[Flo]

Lisle listened to the Nerysian before responding.

"Mr. Dubius, I appreciate your comments. The WBU is in agreement with what you have said and we will surely have time to discuss your proposal on regional security. After all, it is a topic of great importance. The WBU also appreciates Nerysias interest in promoting the cultural education of our continents citizens."

"We now ask the delegation from Eskkya for comments."

[BrumBrum]

Valentina de Liañolistened intently to the Nerysian response. She was now ready to give her response. She waited until the silence in the conversation. She then started "The Nerysian delegate makes a good point, co-operation should be primarily for a purpose not just because we can, I believe it must also balance the needs of national sovreignty of our states. I think the visa for student exchange co-operation could be dealt with as part of a general loosening of visa policy and restrictions. We with Lomarre have for many years now had free movement between Lomarre and us though we do not believe this is necessarily good continent wide given the bigger population however other aspects of that treaty could be brought over to this. We could loosen regulations for business visas for short term trips , also have a 1 month general Brigidnan tourist visa to increase visits to our continent and between it. I also believe that student exchanges would be an excellent way to boost co-operation and research and share knowledge. Another related policy that may or may not work may be visa free travel with travel between the nations here present. This could boost tourism and the economy as it has done significantly in United Breighighist Duchies and I believe also in Lomarre and wouldn't present such a security threat as passports would have to be shown , if this is combined with sharing of intelligence of known criminal and terrorist threats in a database between nations we could effectively vet people potentially stopping them before they get anywhere near a plane or deny them at the border. Of course these are only ideas , but this would fit the theme of freeer movement but also keep regional security at the same time. I know this is a big change but it could very well end up benefiting alot of nations in attendance here though it is vital we keep controls over the numbers as too many people moving around at once can always cause issues such as rising housing prices and putting locals out of jobs and the first role of a democratic government is to protect the people who already live in an area."

[Flo]

Lisle responded.

"Yes, these are all things that can be considered in due time. Your travel visa proposal is particularly interesting."

He turned slightly to his left. "We will now hear from the delegation from Varenthia."

[Rommy]

Vice Chancellor Lavete had his remarks prepared the week prior, fully knowing his opening statement would be the only one he could make with any sense of thoughtfulness put in advance. He looked over to behind him, his friend and Director of Brigidnan Affairs, Alexander Killstock nodded in approval over the words they had both worked diligently on.

"The High Republic of Varenthia looks towards a future of Brigidnan cooperation that extends beyond simply just talks with variously important diplomats, and never consistent numbering of nations attending said talks. Talking, negotiating, can only go so far until it becomes lost like dust in the wind. Some of you must be thinking that is what we are doing now however. No, we are taking the first steps towards something greater, we simply must not bring ourselves down and continue to move forward no matter what.

Our children and their studies are the key to our success in the future, Varenthia would support an opt-in program for nations interested in a standardized regional student visa application processed tied into the university application process. Varenthia has a program for foreign students where their visa application is synonymous with the university, albeit obviously with extra information required, so in the event they are accepted their attain a student visa as long as they remain enrolled in the university. Expanding such a program to a regional basis could see the chance for renewed appreciation for the many nations of our continent among our students, and foster in a new era of academia and innovation.

In the greater scope of things Varenthia sees this as a chance to allow for cooperation on cypersecurity, easement of tariffs and potential for new travel visa standards for nations which opt in to such a program; however Varenthia itself wishes to to see cooperation on the scientific front by the creation of a regional organization to organize new research projects and grants for universities and other public and private organizations. My personal hope is that we could use this as a stepping stone towards the creation of a Brigidnan patent treaty protecting the rights of the creator and their creations.

We have more to gain by finding common areas of working together that benefit us all, than remaining cynical and hardline. I hope we all work towards something here at this conference rather than against something."

[Flo]

Lisle nodded.

"We appreciate the comments made by the delegation from Varenthia." He was pleased as it seemed the Varenthians and the WBU were of the same mind.

"We now ask for comments from the Mordvanian delegation."

[Hadash]

Mordvanian delegation was headed by Minister of Foreign Minister Borislav Zahovek and Minister of Finance Kazys Gimbutiené, who had recently been promoted to the Vice-Presidency of the Republican Council.

“Before I start”, Minister Borislav Zahovek said, “I would like to thank Mr. Lisle and the West Brigidnan Union for their welcoming here and their ambitious initiative, that I sincerely hope that is able to give birth to stronger cooperation between the Brigidnan community”.

“A student visa program seems to me a positive way to start this conference”, Zahovek continued. “One may say that is not only a good proposal in itself, but even at a symbolical level, as a sign of commitment to look toward the future and bring together the peoples of the Brigidnan continent...Since more than ten years, there has been a similar student program between the Republic of Mordvania and East Kaljurand which has brought excellent results. We are therefore open to such initiative. It would be positive if the signatories government agreed as well to reduce any extra higher education fees for Brigidnan students, in order to improve the excellency and fairness of such programa”.

“Regional security is also an important issue where cooperation could be certainly positive,  we agree”, Zahovek continued after a pause. “However, such a security system as the one being proposed implies important challenges which can not be ignored. It is important that such system is not an arbitrary one, but rather a rules-based system. Not because some abstract idea of national sovereigntly, but for practical reasons such as the principles of judicial review and constitutional guarantees”.

“Varenthian proposal of further cooperation in the fields of scientific research and education is interesting in our view”, Kazys Gimbutiené added once Minister Zahovek finished his intervention. “We hope that Brigidnan cooperation is also expanded toward a stronger protection of intellectual property as well”.