Trade mission (att. Sheridan)

[Rheinbund]

The Eiffellandian government had two aeroplanes at its disposal: A jet-powered Komet and a piston-powered Schwan, both from the Eiffellandian company Dassau Flugzeugwerke. Of course the Komet had the advantage that it was faster than the Schwan, but the Komet's range was not enough to reach Sheridan without an intermediate landing. The Schwan, however, could reach Sheridan without an intermediate landing; therefore, this was the plane that Minister for Foreign Affairs and Vice-Chancellor Rudolph Kögler took to fly to Sheridan with a delegation from various Eiffellandian companies.

This was a trade mission. Representants from

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, the

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,

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were accompanying the Vice-Chancellor on this trip. The aim of the mission was to open the Sheridanish market for Eiffellandian products, while Eiffelland would open its market for raw materials from Sheridan. It was always good to diversify with that respect.
[MENTION=516]Sheridan[/MENTION]

 

[Sheridan]

The Eiffellanders where given a military convoy to bring them to the Ministry of Cooperation. Rather than meet with the Minister of Prosperity, the MoC figured it could handle this. On account of the Vice-Chancellor coming as well as the MoP's busy schedule. The idea of this meeting was to give Sheridan another market for manufactured goods and quality luxury goods. Minister of Cooperation Alfred Worthington was quite confident that they could work out some special deal to attract the Eiffelland investment into Sheridan.

The Ministry of Cooperation was a massive building, like all those constructed by the Sheridanian state. The idea was to inspire awe, and command respect. Whether these where successful wasn't clear to Worthington, but he enjoyed watching the slaves look at it. They had a look in their eyes of pity, probably for the poor wretches who where forced to build the monstrosity. Minister Worthington's offices were at the top floor, and extremely well decorated. No expense was spared making the entire building seem to secrete flow, something the Sheridanian government is obsessive about.

Worthington smiled as he watched the convoy arrive from his window. He approached his phone, picked it up and spoke a few words, "Don't bother calling me just send them up. No security checks, we don't want to make our rich friends uncomfortable."

 

[Rheinbund]

During his 7 years as Minister for Foreign Affairs, Rudolph Kögler was already used to something with respect to governmental buildings that had been designed to enforce respect. The fact that a government could afford such a building was in itself a sign of power. In earlier days, the Dukes, Grand-Dukes, Kings and Emperors of Europe didn’t do anything else but building the largest castles and palaces with solely that purpose. But indeed, the Ministry of Cooperation of Sheridan topped everything he had seen up to now. Indeed, he was impressed. But not impressed enough to lose his self‑confidence.

Minister Kögler was 58 years old. His hair still showed some of the original brown colour, but the grey was more prominent. He had blue eyes and wore glasses. He was 1.80 meters tall and still had an athletic body. Normally it would be the Minister for Economic Affairs who would lead a trade mission, but Minister for Economic Affairs Dr. Stephan Röpke was recuperating from an appendectomy Therefore, Kögler presided over a delegation of in total 14 people.

The Eiffellandians knew very well that Sheridan was a dictatorship. They also suspected that it was a harsh dictatorship, but they didn’t know how harsh it really was, at least not in detail. Should they have known it, however, they would not have tried to intervene. Eiffelland was rich, but it was by far not powerful enough to police the world. Furthermore, it already had two issues round the corner—two red issues to be precise.

After the delegation was shown into Minister Worthington’s office, Kögler presented all the delegation members to the Minister.