State Opening of the Ziu for the 61st Cosă

[þerxh Sant-Enogat]

Speech by the Heads of the Assemblies

Your Majesty, Members of the Ziu, honorable citizens of Talossa,

It is with great honour and solemn responsibility that we, Túischac'h and Mençei of the Kingdom of Talossa, adress the Nation on this important day.

We gather once more under the banner of our beloved flag to deliberate, legislate, and serve. As representatives of the Talossan people, regardless of affiliation, we will uphold the values of democratic engagement, transparency, and mutual respect.

Let us ensure that the voices of all Talossans are heard and respected in the laws we shape.
With that spirit, and in accordance with our constitutional duties, we hereby declare this 61st Cosă legislative session open!

Let us now give floor to His Majesty King Txec, for the delivery of a speech outlining the Government's legislative agenda and program for the term.

The speech will be followed by a rebuttal by the Leader of the Opposition.


-Dien - Túischac'h
-þerxh - Mençei

[King Txec]

Citaxhiens Talossáes, fieirs enclins, amici, es toct ödreux adests!

I am humbled and pleased to make my first Speech from the Throne as your King and Head of State. The Queen and I greet our fellow Talossan's and Cestours warmly and pray we find you thriving and well.

Without further ado, and in accordance with El Lexhatx H.1.1.4, I present the legislative agenda and programme of my Government for the 61st Cosă.

Before anything else, my Government recognizes that, as a minority, its legislative program relies on the consent of one or more parties outside itself, and foreshadows its intention to consult with the other parties in the Ziu to reach broad consensus on necessary reforms. The recent Cross-Party Statement on Harassment, and the ongoing Summit process to deal with this matter, are hopefully only the first example of productive co-operation. As King, I endorse this process, and any other measures taken on a cross-partisan basis to make Talossa a more pleasant, safe, and welcoming place for all citizens and would-be citizens.

Since we are speaking of would-be citizens; in its previous term, my Government enacted various measures to cut down on "spam" immigration applications, and to encourage prospective citizens to make more of an effort to learn about Talossa before immigrating. It has come to our attention that, due to the increasing use of Large Language Models, our previous approach of relying on an immigration essay for this may be limited. My Government will continue to examine ways to eliminate "spam" immigration applications and to encourage all prospective citizens to learn about our nation, while removing any obstacles for those showing sincere interest in Talossanity to participate. My Government has also named a Deputy Immigration Minister, who happens to be a new citizen himself, with the specific job of welcoming prospective citizens to Wittenberg.

And since we are speaking of cross-party consensus: my Government acknowledges that they were overzealous in their proposals for Organic Law reform, and that they did not take time to achieve a broad social consensus. In accordance with the Confidence and Supply agreement for this Cosă term, my Government will continue to build cross-party proposals for Organic Law reform, with a top priority being to build a consensus proposal for election of the Senäts on an at-large basis.

One major success of my Government's previous term was the replacement of the National Database, and I offer my personal congratulations to Secretary of State Lüc da Schir on a smooth transition. But again, a failure of the Government was the "glitch" in the National Website which led to all immigration applications ending up in a spam trap for a number of months. This included the application for restoration of citizenship from our trusty and well-beloved veteran citizen, and actual witness to our Declaration of Independence, Xheralt Del'Encradeir. The Ministry of Technology will work to ensure that something similar does not happen again by taking direct control of the "back end" of talossa.com, leaving decisions over content of the National Webspace to the STUFF Ministry. In addition, my Government will continue the project that we began in the last term of re-nationalizing our national websites, re-establishing them as Kingdom property paid for by Kingdom funds, as opposed to their current informal status as hosted privately by the Permanent Secretary of Backend Administration. Our Kingdom must be sovereign over its own data and its own online presence.

Speaking of Xheralt Del'Encradeir, my Culture Ministry is very proud to have appointed the Oldest of Old Growth Talossans to the Bureau of Home Affairs. No-one is better equipped to organise TalossaFests and to "bring Talossanity back" to its historic homeland. The Culture Ministry will also continue its commitment from the previous term to fund the continuing series of Teach Yourself Talossan lessons. Ár bupt, c'è adüc 'n naziun ladintsch, eða à mhïus 'n naziun dove toct i tzară isch "pärtsmint ladintsch".

As to STUFF, this portfolio is the largest workhorse of my Government, and quite frankly has expanded to the point where it is to be questioned whether it is sustainable as a single Department. Let us list off all the things which currently come under the ambit of STUFF:
    • the Infotecă statistics service;
    • La C'hronică newsletter for all citizens;
    • the national ID cards program;
    • "Talossaware" souvenirs;
    • the National Website;
    • the national social media accounts.
At least the last item on this list has been taken over by a Permanent Secretary who does an excellent job! My Government has also named Deputy Ministers in charge of IDs and Talossaware, whom I expect to do their job dilligently. But we will also examine in great detail whether it is fair or sensible to expect one Ministry to be in charge of all these things, and still pay due care and attention to all of them. We previously mentioned the "gap" in responsibilities with regard to the National Website that caused a serious failure.

In any case, the Ministry of STUFF will resume attempts to promote Talossan citizenship in "real life" cultural events and academic spaces, something which appeals very much to the interests of Deputy Minister Barclamiu Mieletz. As you may recall, in my Independence Day Speech, I declared the year 2025 as L'Anneu D'Comunità, or in English, The Year of Community. My government and I urge all Talossans to spend as much time as possible seeing, hearing, listening, and communicating with other Talossans. In his joint role as Minister of Defence, our trusty and well-beloved Bråneu Excelsio will resume the last term's goal of a live promotion ceremony for the Zouaves, as well as all the other regular activities of that body. It has also been brought to our attention that the other branch of Talossa's defence forces, the Royal Talossan Navy, has been sadly neglected in recent years. We hope for a cross-service revival of our military readiness – and for both branches to play a role in whatever plans the College of Arms have for my Coronation.

Another of my Government's acknowledged failures from the last term was in the realm of Foreign Affairs, where the incumbent Minister had to withdraw due to personal circumstances quite late in the term. I take my role as Talossa's chief diplomat extremely seriously, and I expect to work closely with our new Minister of Foreign Affairs on diplomatic relations with other nations that share our values, looking to build up ties to other countries and better establish our presence and diplomatic ties. The Foreign Minister will shortly make a speech going into more detail on current plans.

Finally, I am pleased to reiterate our Government's commitment to enhance the scope of the Royal Civil Service. We agree that the tone of political discourse may be served by "lowering the stakes" of politics in Talossa – that is, by making more functions of the Kingdom Civil Service jobs rather than political appointments. We are proud and pleased to announce that we will cooperate strongly with the Government on using the Talossan honours system, including the newly revamped Order for the Nation, as well as military promotions, to create more incentives for Civil Service work. One of the first measures in this regard will be a proposal for the Chancery to take over the function of legislative "proofreading" currently held by the CRL.

And so ends my first Speech from the Throne as your Head of State and King. I sincerely and deeply hope that I, and my Government, will meet your expectations over the coming term of the Cosă.

¡Så vivadra ár ImagiNaziun!

[þerxh Sant-Enogat]

Your Majesty, Members of the Cabinet, Members of the Ziu, fellow citizens of Talossa,

It is with respect and sense of high duty that I stand today as the Leader of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition to respond to the speech presented at the opening of this 61st Cosă.

I will begin by expressing, on behalf of my Party members and myself, our sincere appreciation to the Government for giving a broad and detailed outline of its programme. I also wish to extend my thanks to His Majesty for delivering this speech with dignity and wisdom.

Allow me at start to affirm a simple but essential principle : we in the Opposition do not oppose for the sake of opposing. We are in the Opposition to improve, to correct and to ensure that the actions of the Government are subject to scrutiny, and that all legislation is the product of careful deliberations, and not imposed by a numerically majority Party without a full understanding of all consequences of contemplated changes. At the end of the lastest Cosă, the negative result of the referendum on such a change clearly underlined the consequences of hastiness in the will to reform our political system, and we note with satisfaction that our Seneschal acknowledged this lack of sufficient consultation and consensus. Our Organic Law is not a casual document to be re-written at will.

Our duty is not simply to contest, but also to cooperate where it serves the good of our nation and our people. I therefore welcome the Government's stated intention to pursue cross-party dialogue, particularly in those areas of reform that affect the fundamental structures of our Kingdom. I want to ensure the citizens of Talossa that the Opposition will approach such dialogue in good faith.

When it comes to the Government's immigration policy, we note the efforts to distinguish between spam applications and sincere aspirants to Talossan citizenship. At the same time, let us not forget why people from all origins, all level of education and all level of english language want to join us. We must ensure that the gates to our Kingdom remain open to all those who, in good faith, seek to contribute to the Talossan dream – and in all cases we will prefer presenting insufficiently prepared applications rather than seeing them being censored. Our citizens should be able to make their own minds on whether to support or not such application. As former Minister of Immigration, I know the amount of work which is needed behind the administration and the timely processing of immigration applications. The appointment of a Deputy Immigration Minister who himself is a recent immigrant is a positive initiative. May this bring the empathy that this vital portfolio requires.

On the technological side, we acknowledge the achievements in modernizing our national database – and really thank our Secretary of State for the huge work done. We welcome the Government's plans to restore sovereignty over our digital infrastructure. We will stay vigilant so that the Citizens' Data, the websites, the communication tools and the archives remain accessible when needed, securely managed, and used only for the benefit of all. We will also insist on maintaining the availability of all data useful to monitor the activity of our Government, such as provided by the Infotecă services.

The Opposition takes particular interest in the efforts of the Ministry of STUFF and the one of Defense to develop activities and opportunities of exchanges between us all. We think that this should also greatly benefit to our Provincial life.

Regarding foreign affairs, the Government's intention to renew diplomatic efforts is appreciated. We encourage engagement with like-minded nations, and the development of our culture through alliances based on mutual respect and shared values. We will stay vigilant to avoid that we lose our credibility by partnering with suspicious ideology or too childish micro-nations.

The Government's desire to expand the role of the Royal Civil Service is one we support, as shown by our continuous engagement. Depoliticizing administrative functions can indeed contribute to greater stability and improved commitment of all citizens.

Finally, I take this opportunity to insure the King, the Seneschal and all citizens of Talossa that we in the Opposition stand ready to support every measure that fortifies the democratic character and the attractiveness of our Kingdom. We may sometimes differ in ideology and policy, but we are united by our devotion to Talossa.

Noi scrütinarhent quándsevol neceßar, bacarhent quándsevol utzil, auxhectarhent quándsevol resquirat – mas över toct noi remainarhent fidéux àð àr miziun à representar las voces d'acestilor qi quairent el progreçéu per noastra Regipäts
We will scrutinize whenever necessary, support whenever useful, and object whenever required - but above all, we will remain faithful to our mission to represent the voice of those who seek progress for our Kingdom.

¡Sà viva noastra Regeu, vivadra noastră democraçù es noschtri tradiziuns, vivadra noastră Naziun amescu!
Long live our King, long live our democracy and our traditions, long live our beloved Nation !

þerxh Sant-Enogat - Leader of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition