The Lörrach Gathering

[Längerland]

The Grand Occidental Hotel
Central District, Lörrach
Free Republic of Längerland

The Grand Occidental Hotel was the premier gathering place for the elite of Lörrach. Politicians, businessmen, foreign diplomats, all came here when visiting the city. If they were denizens then they came by for tea and coffee in the ornate lobby to overhear gossip or make some of their own. Today the entire hotel had been chartered out by the Längisch government. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs had invited the foreign ministers of a number or countries in Gallia and Germania with the hopes of discussing the foundation of a new economic bloc. It was firmly within the belief of the Progressive Justice Alliance ruling party in Längerland that this could be achieved not only due to the close geographic proximity of the invited states, but because of their overall general shared values, attitudes and goals.

Minister Mauritz was standing in the lobby overseeing the arrival of all the delegations and their large staff. They were checking in to their luxurious hotel suites, having their baggage handled by the porters, getting in a spot of tea or coffee before the main proceedings began.

Mauritz, satisfied with the logistics thus far, went off to the large conference room, which was abuzz with the chatter of all the delegations. It was a large circular table with the name placards of each country delegation. Mauritz sat down and gradually the chatter subsided. He smiled and began to address all those gathered.

'Ladies and Gentlemen, distinguished guests, I welcome you warmly to the beautiful city of Lörrach, capital of the Free Republic of Längerland. It means so much to me and my government that you have decided to come here today to engage in these exciting discussions. Discussions that I believe will change the lives of many millions for the better.'

Mauritz had chosen to speak in High German rather than Längisch, so that the other German-speaking delegations would not have to bother with interpretations to get through their headphones. He also spoke a bit slower than usual so that the Francophone delegates would not be too far behind.

'In short, we are here to talk about the formation of an economic bloc and cultural organisation. A multilateral organisation that would help our countries come together and cooperate on issues such as trade, customs duties, taxation, labour, travel and visa regulations, police cooperation, infrastructure cooperation, academic cooperation, and so on and so forth. There are so many opportunities to take hold of. Some of them, I believe, can be agreed upon today. Others in due course. I do not wish to hijack this forum, for this is a democratic place and I would value the open discussions to commence with ideas and thoughts from all those here. So please, feel free to begin!'

Mauritz leaned back in his chair, fountain pen at the ready, hoping to hear some new and interesting ideas before he delved into his own.



OOC: All those mentioned below are those invited to send their foreign ministers.

[MENTION=18]Eiffelland[/MENTION] [MENTION=840]Großlausitz[/MENTION] [MENTION=26]Bourgogne[/MENTION] [MENTION=1851]Braberbourg[/MENTION] [MENTION=414]Nichtstein[/MENTION]

 

[Remuria]

The Grand Occidental Hotel
Central District, Lörrach
Free Republic of Längerland

The Foreign Minister of the Grand Duchy of Nichtstein was surprisingly enough also called Mauritz. Well, in fact, in High German his name was Moritz, but in his native tongue his name was Maurizio Clemente, Conte nella Valle Maggia. Count in the Maggiatal, not of the Maggiatal, a funny quirk of times long gone. Understandably enough, the Nichtsteiner Foreign Minister hailed from the country's Retalian(Tiburan)-speaking community, which accounted for roughy 40% of the population.

"Thank you so much, Your Excellency," the Nichtsteiner Foreign Minister spoke in High German with a clearly pronounced Retalian accent. "As you know my country is already closely politically, culturally and economically integrated with the Kingdom of Eiffelland and such integration has only produced benefits and profits for all parties involved. So we are looking forward to seeing what opportunities lie in front of us."

 

[Braberbourg]

The Grand Occidental Hotel
Central District, Lörrach
Free Republic of Längerland

The Braberbourger minister of foreign affairs, Woldemar Häuptling, stands up after a short while of general silence in the room. Like many of the middle and upper class male inhabitants of Braberbourg, his most prominent facial feature is his black, stylish and partly curling moustache. Examining the crowd in front of him for a second, he opened his mouth for a second and started speaking to the delegates in the room.

“My dear colleagues, if I may speak up…”

He once again looks through the room. His voice clearly shows that he’s of Braberbourger origin, fluently speaking High German, while he has a soft pronounciation of most words, and his sentences end as if he’s mumbling rather than actually holding a speech. After a brief pause, he proceeds.

“Like many in this room know, Braberbourg and it’s current coalition, the Anti-Revolutionary Party and the Nationalist Party, are in full support of an economic union that can and most likely will strengthen our positions in this world of international trade, aswell as improving the economic situation of our populations.”

He again pauzes and freezes for a few seconds, although his face shows relaxation rather than anxiety, which betrays that his sudden stop has another reason behind it. After it almost looks like he had finished, he continues with his speech.

“However, as anyone can observe, there are many differences in both national and international policies of the countries currently present in this room. And considering that time changes the will of the people, I encourage to only form a basic union focused primarily on cooperation, rather than to create a list of specific rules all nations have to abide to which can only create strife between us and the governments that will replace us in the next years, may it be months, years or even decades, and thus preserve an upcoming future of friendship amongst our nations and peoples.”

He pauzes again, before continueing with the last part of his speech.

“Thank you that you have given your time to listen to me, the Braberbourger government and the people it governs.”

After yet another brief period of silence, he steps back and sits down on his chair again, examining the room once more and sipping from his glass of wine to calm his nerves, even if unnoticeable.

 

[Holy Frankish Empire]

The Grand Occidental Hotel
Central District, Lörrach
Free Republic of Längerland

Baron Jean Hébert had been appointed Foreign Minister only 3 days prior to the conference. With elections postponed indefinitely, the government was at the will of the Grand Duke. Hébert was an adept politician who had spent some time in exile under the republican regime. Returned, he had thrown himself into politics once again. Tall with an angular nose, Hébert looked almost awkward. He dressed impeccably and his mannerisms were sometimes that of a gentleman of 1800. Despite his appearance and demeanor, he was a voracious worker and a consummate professional. His written German was poor and he often made spelling a grammatical errors but even still, he spoke it with a command. As the other representatives spoke, Hebert took furious notes but frowned as he crossed out a mistake and hurried to catch up with his notes. He resigned himself to putting down his pen to cross his arms and listen. After a pause, Hebert began-

"As you know, we have maintained both a financial and military relationship with the Kingdom of Eiffelland for some time now" began the Baron, looking at his notes. "Now, Bourgogne would very much like to develop similar fiscal cooperation with the other nations here. We are interested in what ideas may be put forward and make no promises other than to listen to the ideas and judge their merit fairly. Now, I believe it is best to establish the boundaries of what this bloc is to be" he concluded.

 

[Großlausitz]

The Grand Occidental Hotel
Central District, Lörrach
Free Republic of Längerland

The Foreign Minister of the Kingdom of Großlausitz was at the helm of a country’s delegation that had been pretty much the epitome of average the last one and a half centuries. It had fared pretty decently with the approach of sticking to a neutral and later on almost isolationist stance. Only the ascension of King David V Benedikt’s father King Daniel IV had begun to change things a wee bit. And only when the current king came to throne national politics were no longer dominated by isolationist and neutrality-focussed politicians. Instead, the new generation of leaders were interested in bringing Großlausitz on the large stage that was international affairs.
Foreign Minister Dr. Leonhard Ermann was one of those new men. He came from a very humble background and had worked his way to the top, thanks to determination, luck and a grant by King Daniel IV’s education fund which meant to allow and enable children from poor families to go to university. Although Dr. Ermann embraced the typical manners and ideas of Großlausitz‘ Christian Democratic elite, he never forgot where we came from.

So he could not help but to cast a friendly grin at Baron Hérbert’s 19th century mannerisms. They seemed both so out of date but also fitting to this conference. Dr. Ermann hoped the Baron would not misintepret his grin as sarcastic.

„Thank you, Minister Mauritz, for your invitation and your fine introduction,“ Dr. Ermann said, „Großlausitz is aware of the various differences between our countries. We would be staunchly opposed to plans that would mold our countries into one bland and boring and unnatural union. But there’s so much to gain from a closer cooperation. E.g. economically we could each focus on what our respective economies can produce the most efficiently and best. Culturally we would benefit, too: If our peoples can travel more easily they would realise the gains that come from a treaty we are discussing. Großlausitz, for example, may be able to defend itself and have an O.K. economy, but that’s about all we can hope for alone. More can only come from cooperation.“

 

[Rheinbund]

Rudolph Kögler was in his second term as Minister for Foreign Affairs. He was also the political leader of the market liberal FDV. After the national elections of 1950, his party had lost seats in quite a lot of provincial elections, and also in last year’s national election. As a result, his position in the FDV had become weak. He was still the political leader of the FDV, but not uncontested. The fact that the FDV had stopped the line downward in the recent elections for the provincial parliament in the Harz had improved his position, but still there were people interested in taking up his position.
After a terrorist assault committed by communists had killed his father in the 1910s, he had become a rabid anti-communist, but he hadn’t imposed that stance upon the FDV, whose official line was that communism is a system that cannot work and, therefore, should not be implemented in any country in the world and should be abolished in the countries where it was already implemented.

But that wasn’t the official stance of the Eiffellandian government. A coalition government always meant that you had to close compromises. The Christiandemocratic CDV, the larger party in the coalition, that also delivered the Chancellor, agreed with the FDV that communism cannot work, wanted to prevent that it would be implemented in Eiffelland, but didn’t want to impose Eiffelland’s Social Market Economy upon other countries. That also meant that the CDV didn’t have a problem with the simple fact that countries like Auraria and Carentania had adopted a communist-like system. This had become the official stance of the Eiffellandian government, with the notion that Eiffelland would always condemn attempts by any entity, be it a country or a rebellious faction within a country, to impose a communist-like system upon a country. As a result, Auraria and Carentania were watched by Eiffelland with caution, not because of their communist-like system, but because of their wish to see the whole world communist.

However, the Eiffellandian government was fully aware of Längerland’s wish to remain strictly neutral, and fully respected that wish. Furthermore, it fully realised that a war in the Long Sea would harm everyone. Therefore, it would act carefully in the Long Sea.

Kögler had one advantage. German was his primary language, but he also spoke French and Italian very well. He had learned it at secondary school, and afterwards he regularly followed courses to keep his knowledge up to date. He was only not familiar with Längisch, simply because of the place where he had grown up. He was clearly a Trierer. He had been born in Trier, and had never lived anywhere else. He even studied in Trier. Of course he had been abroad on holidays, and had travelled a lot for business and political purposes, but he had never lived anywhere else than in Trier.

After having listened to the other people, Kögler took the floor. Accustomed to Eiffellandian manners, which were very formal despite the fact that Eiffelland was not really an authoritarian country.

“You Excellency, Minister Mauritz, first I want to thank you for your hospitality here in the Capital city of Längerland. We completely agree with your idea behind this conference. We have a lot of values in common; therefore, it is nothing else but logical and sensible that we cooperate. Their Excellencies Count Clemente and Baron Hébert already pointed at the special relations of their respective countries and Eiffelland. Actually, the King of Eiffelland is also the Grand-Duke of Nichtstein, and I can tell you, he takes that duty very seriously. He is in Nichtstein at least once a week, and often two days a week. And like Count Clemente stipulates, Nichtstein and Eiffelland integrated their economies to a large extent, which benefitted both our countries. Furthermore, we cooperate much on a political level, making many things easier. And there are many cultural initiatives between our two countries.”

Kögler stopped for a moment to take a sip of his water. Then he continued.

“The financial ties we share with Bourgogne are important as well. They made trade between Bourgogne and Eiffelland very much easier. We also militarily cooperate with Bourgogne. We are developing planes together, and in the end we will both have the same standard rifle, which will make the supply of spare parts and bullets easier and cheaper. This as an example; if for instance the car industry decides to standardise some spare parts as well, things can become cheaper there as well. It is clear that we will all benefit from economic cooperation. Moreover, we will also benefit to a large extent if we make custom duties and visa regulations easier, or even abolish visa duties between our countries. Also coordinating infrastructure projects will help us, so that we can determine where large roads and railroads will have to be built. Or what about electricity cables? Or oil and gas pipelines? Or something simple like a plug? If we all use the same plug, it will also make things easier. A lot easier to be precise.”

Then Kögler took another sip of his water, after which he continued.

“Your Excellency Minister Häuptling, I understand your point that we should not make an enormous amount of rules we all have to abide by. However, I think we all benefit a lot if we agree on some things. For example: Traffic signs. Eiffelland and Nichtstein use more or less the same traffic signs. A sign indicating a speed limit is always a round white sign with a red brim and a number in the middle. The fonts of the numbers differ, but the basic design is always the same. We did so for all traffic signs. Now Nichtsteiner motorists don’t have to learn a new set of traffic signs before going to Eiffelland and vice versa. The same to the voltage and ampèrage in the electricity system. If every country would use its own voltage and ampèrage, companies producing electronic devices would have to take all those different voltages and ampèrages into account. Or what about each country having its own shape of plug? Electronics companies have to take all those different types of plugs into account. Or suppose a company wants to open a factory or office in a different country. Now all the labour and taxation legislations differ, forcing that company to hire a specialist for that, and leading to misunderstandings because of those differences in legislations. Indeed, taxation and labour legislations is more difficult to harmonise because these are politically sensitive items, but then we could make it easier to find information on our different taxation and labour legislations. But first let’s agree on a cooperation between our countries as proposed by His Excellency Minister Mauritz. We can discuss harmonisations of plugs, voltages, ampèrages, safety issues and traffic signs later.”