Neualtenburg Foreign Policy

This perhaps should have gone in the constitution thread, but I decided to post it separately.

The constitution as it now stands says nothing about the city's foreign policy and which branch(es) of city government is/are responsible for its making or execution. Given that a Neualtenburg embassy is under construction in Isenland, these issues should be addressed soon.


Some proposals

1. A block of land in the sim should be set aside for foreign embassies. The NW Viertel has the most open space, although I don't know how Bond and Dianne would feel about the potential neighbors. The modern zoning in the area would allow each embassy to be built in the style of the sending "government".

2. To control tier costs and mirror the RL custom of governments controlling their embassies, a land swap systme would be put in place for the duration of diplomatic relations with any SL entity. The foreign entity would be granted a lot at no cost for their embassy in the Neualtenburg sim, and Neualtenburg would receive an identically sized and primmed lot in the foreign region. Everyone would continue to pay tier only on their own sims.

3. P2P may make this unnecessary, but do we then need a diplomatic corps?

Claude, this is an excellent proposal, thanks very much for suggesting it!

While economic & trade agreements would be the province of the Guild (and this may yet be the best reason for doing "diplomatic exchanges", I'm also a bit clueless under which branch the foreign policy should depend of.

I agree with your suggestion #1, but I'd love to see more input on this. The alternative, of course, would have the foreign embassy picking the place they'd like best, just like a regular resident.

#2 is perfectly reasonable, I think that no further discussion is needed.

#3 The "diplomatic corps" should be something different, ie. there is no need for "physical presence", but some button at the embassy showing online status of available diplomats, and being able to IM them, saying "someone is at the embassy and wishes to talk to you". The embassador/diplomat would then have the task to p2p to the embassy and have a chat with whomever pressed the IM button.

Of course, this also means that a lot of thought should be given on what the foreign policy is. What kinds of groups/sims should we approaching? Can you imagine an "embassy" at Midnight City? (in return, they would have a "trade post" in N'burg — since they don't call themselves a "government"...) At Dreamland? (Anshe is the undisputed tyrannical despot of Dreamland) At Prokofy's Government-in-a-Prim? At Nexus Prime (Gibson/Bonifacio)? At Luskwood? At Miranda (they do have a government, but it's a RPG inside SL)?

As you see, the issues are complex. What are "countries" in SL? Put into other words, which groups/sims does Neualtenburg recognize as "sovereign countries"? Discussing this may prove very interesting...

In that case the embassy in Isenland (which is huge, btw) may be more of a trade mission. If the diplomatic functions are a 'press to im' button, etc., what will we do with the 1000+ square meters in the embassy? Lots and lots of vendors? Kendra probably has a plan. I just don't know what it is

It follows from the dictates of Isenland society which functions not so much as a traditional Government but a corporatist trade union.

The primary goals of Isenland, regarding Neualtenburg, is to allow free flow of Neualtenburg merchants (and philosophies) into the embassy while maintaining a tariff on all goods of a 10% flat rate. Isenland is eager to set up a similar embassy in Neualtenburg in whatever region the Neualtenburg Government designates.

Nealtenburg merchants should contact myself or Nisse Nilsson. Nisse is in particular eager to see a Neualtenburg Ambassador to Isenland appointed to aid in forming a more traditional Neaultenburg styled Government.

Is the Gilde looking for volunteers?