STATEMENT from the Incoming Government of the 60th Cosă

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

¡Estimat.dăs cüncitaxhiens!

I hoped to be making this statement in celebration of the nomination of the Heir to the Throne, as promised by His Majesty Ián I Lupul lo these many months ago. Rumour has it that this is coming soon. Rumour has it even that the nomination speech is written. I have no idea why it has not been produced yet. I have no idea because the King does not talk to me, and has not talked to me in a long time. This is a symptom of exactly why we need a new King, and why we've been struggling for years to reach the point of getting one.

I had also hoped to be making this in the form of a formal "Speech from the Throne" at the State Opening of the Cosă, as envisaged in El Lexhatx H.1.1.4. But such a State Opening would have to be organised by the Túischac'h and the Mençei, and there is no Mençei. The current absolute torpor of the Senäts is not doing anything to persuade the nation of the virtues of bicameralism. My personal preference is for a legislature which requires fewer legislators, but selects for better ones. We'll see what comes out of the Organic Law debate.

Anyway, without further ado, I present the legislative agenda and programme of the Avant Coalition government for the 60th Cosă.

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One of our top priorities will be, as foreshadowed in our pre-election agreement, a wide-ranging and open-ended discussion on Talossa's Organic Law and constitutional structure, in which each party will promote its own preferences. @Mic'haglh Autófil, SMC EiP has already taken the initiative on setting this up.

As also envisaged in our pre-election agreement, as well as in the programme of the Free Democrats, we have set a target that the current National Database will no longer be used by the end of the 60th Cosă – and, it is greatly anticipated, to be replaced by something better. The Minister of Technology, @Mic'haglh Autófil, SMC EiP , has presented a roadmap towards this goal:
-    Firstly, to prioritize those Database functions most in need of replacement (consulting with the Chancery);
-    Secondly, to ensure this replacement is flexible enough to allow for integration with Infoteca as well as future modification.
Other priorities in the Technology portfolio  will be:
-    Re-nationalizing our national websites.  At the moment, they are being hosted on the private webspace of the Permanent Secretary of Backend Administration (the former Minister of Technology). This is neither sustainable nor acceptable from a point of view of public administration. They need to be hosted professionally, paid for by Kingdom funds.
-    In conjunction with this, we will investigate finally ending our relationship with DeRoyal Servers, and investigate possible replacements for both Government email hosting and our domain registrations. In the process of this, we will seek to drop various "ghost" domains where appropriate.

I have personally taken on the portfolio of Immigration in addition to the Seneschalsqåb, and in addition to the administrative functions of the role, my Government will assume a new policy in this regard. This policy will be summed up as Quality rather than Quantity. The previous Government proudly pointed to Infotecă statistics showing a large number of immigration applications, as well as converting a good proportion of these into citizenships. But how many of these new citizens stayed around and became active members of our community?

There is no point processing citizenships which don't go nowhere. Even worse, there is a risk of unintentional "broosking" - as long as the Immigration Minister is the main point of contact for new citizens, and the Government is incentivized to create "maximum immigration", new citizens who are not properly conversant with our political landscape will tend to align with the Minister's party, even if the Minister is carefully impartial. This was seen clearly over the last two Government terms.

The long-term survival of Talossa requires new active citizens, who can replace older citizens who "GAFIAte", as they say in fandom circles (we would say "go inactive") or pass on to being Talossáes din els Efs. Therefore, this Government will move to raise the bar for new prospectives. Engagement with new prospectives will concentrate on, not only making sure they have values compatible with Talossan citizenship, but in getting them ready for active involvement in national life – including awareness of their right to a single seat in the Ziu. We will also investigate raising the bar in the immigration process itself – that is, requiring a real "What Talossa Means To Me" essay requiring thought, as opposed to the vague sentence or two currently required, and authorising the Ministry to reject applications which don't do this.

The new Minister of Defence, @Bråneu Excelsio , has hit the ground running, reactivating the Royal Zouaves and issuing several promotions. We envisage that this will continue throughout our term in office, including an initiative for a live promotion ceremony for the Zouaves sometime in this term.
But Ministreu Excelsio's more pressing responsibility will be the STUFF portfolio, which has grown to be the powerhouse of Talossa's government:
-    Existing initiatives such as Infotecă and La C'hronică will continue.
-    Advertising for our Kingdom will concentrate more on promoting the values associated with Talossan citizenship, in conjunction with our Immigration policy; as well as highlighting our cultural activities.

I have also taken the portfolio of Culture. The first thing I want to note is that I think there is a problem of "demarcation" with STUFF. Please compare the legislative job description for Culture (El Lexhatx D.2.7), to:

promote Talossan culture, including our national language, our musical and sporting heritage, our mythical Berber connections, and all of our other quirks.

with that for STUFF (Lexh. D.2.10), for

the internal and external promotion of the Kingdom, all events therein and all things Talossan

.
So we have to ask ourselves: is the division of labour between Culture and STUFF clear? Does it need to be redefined?

But in any case, in the existing Culture portfolio, the Government will continue to enact the Bureau of Home Affairs' Strategic Plan as held over from the last Government. We also intend - once again - to work closely with the Ladîntsch Naziunal, and the whole Talossan-speaking community, towards the age-old goal of getting as many Talossans using and learning our national language as possible. It is our greatest and most unique cultural treasure. We just need to work out how to make it an integral and useful part of Talossan life.

The main objective of the Foreign Ministry, under @Bentxamì Puntmasleu , for the 60th Cosa term is the establishment of relations with other stable, nonaligned, and not otherwise objectionable micronations. In this context "stable" refers to being reasonably well-developed or on course to become developed. "Nonaligned" refers to micronations that are not excessively identified with a macro-national ideology or cause. Micronations that are otherwise objectionable include (but are not limited to) those that are racist, otherwise bigoted, criminal, violent etc. The prospect of reforming an organization of such micronations will be explored and, if conditions are favourable, acted upon. This is all done with an eye toward establishing conventions on micronationalism, exchanging ideas and information, and working together on mutually beneficial projects. The very first step will be to draw up a list of appropriate micronations with which we should first attempt to establish contact.

This Government also intends to move forward on a long standing priority, to enhance the scope of the Royal Civil Service. It is our firm belief that the rancor inherent to Talossan politics can be toned down only by decentralising politics in Talossa – that is, by making more functions of the Kingdom Civil Service jobs rather than political appointments. An objection which has been historically raised to this is that "doing the work" is best rewarded by political power. We envisage using the Talossan honours system to create more incentives for Civil Service work. We also envisage, as a top priority, examining how the Scribery, or some other branch of the Civil Service, can take over the current function of the CRL. This will be tricky in that we still want the Túischac'h and the Mençei to have an important role. But legislative "proofreading" is done by non-political "clerks" in other countries. We believe that the CRL is better than nothing, but not as good as this solution.

Finally, we want to impress on the nation that this Government intends to maintain a sustainable work schedule. No-one, since King Robert I left, can be Talossan full time. All of us have work, study or family commitments outside of the Kingdom. Therefore we will keep sensible and sustainable "office hours" in Talossa. If Ministers need to "take a break", they will; we expect that they will inform the Seneschál, and the Seneschál will inform the nation as and when necessary, and adjust our objectives as necessary. We are not Stakhanovites, or if you prefer, Boxer from Animal Farm.

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To reiterate: I fervently hope and pray that in the 61st Cosă there will not only be a proper State Opening, but that the equivalent of this speech will be delivered by a new, respected, and acclaimed King of Talossa. Well, probably a King - we'll see how the Organic Law reform discussions go. We are nearing the end of 12 years of political struggle in Talossa - after the end of 7 years of political struggle which culminated in Reunision, after however many years against the authoritarianism of King Robert I, and so on and so on back to Boxing Day 1979. But the point is, after Talossa's new King assumes the Somewhat Battered Throne, we get to argue about new things. We will once again have a blank slate - even on the constitutional question, where monarchy vs. republic can be discussed in principle, not in terms of the performance of the incumbent. But all those years of struggle do not end, and the new dawn doesn't come, until there is a new King of Talossa. It makes no sense to delay the inevitable.

¡Så vivadra Talossa! ¡Så vivadra Talossa democrätic! ¡Ian Lupul, c'è temp à ir!