Northern Seleyan Confederation Plenary Meeting

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Dame Jacqueline DuMont, Her Imperial Majesty's Foreign Minister, Empire of Ananto and Kalistan

Having kept the opportunity to speak ahead of Kalistan open a fair amount of time with no additional input from other nations, I'll take the opportunity to lay our Kalistan's position.  Over the last few decades, our Continent has seen an unprecedented amount of interference by foreign powers.  For better or worse, until Lourenne's unexpected but temporary withdrawal from their role as defacto world hegemon, Artanian nations had wisely stayed away from our continent.  The worst violation of Seleyan independence from Artanian imperialism was in Luthori's halting and then eventually completely abandoned efforts to extend their "commonwealth" into Seleya based on mutual language intelligibility.  The rise of Ananto and the subsequent withdrawal of Lourenne from world affairs essentially opened the door for a new set of power arrangements in Northern Seleya.  While the South was still holding onto a zombie political arrangement known as Canrille, Artanian states saw these changes as the green light to go ahead and try to pick our continent to pieces for their own benefit.

You saw a renewed effort by Luthori to press our Continent's states into their Commonwealth, and a newly rising economic imperialism from Narikaton, who are currently dumping mountains of money into what can safely be now called client states, like Valruzia.  It is happening as we speak.  And now that Lourenne has reorganized and are in the active process of attempting to reclaim their prior position, we have another major State who is outside of our Continent looking to build influence within our continent.  All three of these states have recently visited our other Southern neighbor in Gaduridos, and have all dropped significant promises of investment among other things, while Gaduridos has not even made any attempt to contact any member State at this Conference.

Uniting for common purpose is more imperative now that these external forces are making serious and concerted efforts to peel our nations off one by one with could be described as a bribe, if that term wasn't too ethical for what is going on to our South.  Those of us who are here have some vision about the danger that is posed to Seleya by these encroachments, and at least from a few of us who have spoken so far seem to be committed to addressing it with collective action.

To that end, I shall form my proposal to the Conference in the format that I have tried to express other proposals in, so we can make a comparison.

1.  That there shall be a Confederation or Union of Northern Seleyan States, to facilitate

• Closer political and economic union for the protection of Continental Integrity
  
• Resistance to foreign encroachment in the Seleyan Continent
  
• To further our collective interests above and to the exclusion of foreign interests, but for our own collective benefit
  

2.  The Union will have mechanisms to

• Make collective political and economic decisions for the Continent that reflect our own individual and collective interests above all other interests
  
• collectively address external threats to continental security
  
• Pool resources to promote even continental development, investment and scientific and technological progress
  
• Ensure that all members have an equal opportunity to determine policy positions for Continental Security and Cooperation, however this happens
  

3.  That the Union shall be founded upon the principles of

• Continental Unity and Collective Action
  
• Resistance to External Colonialism and Imperialism
  
• Continental Security and ability to resist the impunity of foreign powers in our territorial water, land and air space
  
• Common and mutual benefit for all members
  

Our aim is to create something of a more permanent and welded political and economic union in Northern Seleya that acts closer to a single Superstate than it does to the World Congress. But we also acknowledge that that may be just one of several options, and we wish to stress that we will support whatever this Conference decides, so long as it does not explicitly run contrary to our national interests--i.e. puts Kalistan at a disadvantage.

We are open to any additional proposals, and otherwise, we will begin commentary on any one of the proposals currently on the floor.