Georgiana
TNPer
House of Communications
This is the Interview of The Honourable Romanoffia ,Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was interviewed by The Honourable Charles Windsor. This post is published as received.
Ministry Questions
1. If you get another term,what plans do you have to improve the foreign affairs of TNP?
The general plan of action is to continue working to engage other regions in terms of diplomacy. I am currently working to complete a total reorganization of the Ministry of External affairs and bring it up to the level of activity at which it needs to be. The ministry will also be working on gathering information that will keep the region and its government informed about what is going on with the rest of NationStates. Gathering and disseminating information both inter-regionally and regionally is one of the primary functions of the Ministry of External Affairs.
2. What can you say about the ambassadors?
The Ministry is in the process of re-vamping the rolls of the foreign service. One of the goals here is to replace ambassadors that have gone 'AWOL' and to assign new ambassadors to fill the open diplomatic slots. So far I have had a good number of volunteers come forward to offer their service to the regions, so filling those positions will be a fairly easy task and should be completed shortly. They key here is activity - making sure that the ambassadors are active in their jobs.
3.How many TNP Ambassadors are there?
Officially, there are any number of ambassadors, in practice, many have gone inactive. Right now there are three of us covering the diplomatic end of the Ministry.
In going through all of our embassies in foreign regions, I have found that many of them have gone neglected in the previous couple administrations, mainly because of the lack of active personnel. This situation will and is changing as I am working over a list of those people who are capable of filling the positions needed in the diplomatic corps.
4. On a scale of 1-10, what would you rate the ministry? And how do you plan to better train the ambassadors to handle any region?
Right now, as far as what I wish to accomplish, in all honesty, is about a 5, at best. My goal is to make it a 10 and that takes a little time and must be done carefully and efficiently.
The 'art' of being an ambassador is based largely upon the personal attributes of an individual ambassador. Being an ambassador is largely a 'free-form' sort of job. That is, each ambassador has to become familiar with the 'culture' and 'protocol' of their assigned region. Beyond the initial framework of general protocol, ambassadors as a rule have to engage in a lot of 'on the job training' in addition to formal training provided by the Ministry. The training I have planned is going to be designed to make the job of Ambassador a fairly straight forward affair.
5.What has the ministry of foreign affairs taught you?
Over the years, I have served in all three branches of government. I've served as Minister of Communications, Minister of Defense, Speaker of the House, a General in the NPA, as an intelligence officer in the NPIA and now, Minister of External Affairs. So, it is my hopes that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will hone my knowledge and skills in that aspect of the Government. I think serving in various departments of the government gives one a better understanding of how the government works as a whole.
The main thing that the MoEA has taught me is that some ministries are more complex than others in how they are run and that if discipline and motivation is lacking, the whole machinery of a ministry can come to a screeching halt mainly through inactivity of those who are agents of a given ministry. Finding creative ways to make things interesting enough to keep people's attention and activity in a ministry is also a work in progress.
General Questions
1. Do you plan to run again for a next term?
I indeed plan to run for additional terms as Minister of External Affairs. I want to get everything up to snuff so that in the event that I wish to move on to another position of service to the region, my successor will find himself with a 'turn-key' operating that can be simply handed over.
2. Do you like the ministry you were given? If not what ministry do you plan to go to?
I like the MoEA. One of the reasons I like it is because of the difficulties involved, especially reworking the ministry so that it will function efficiently and effectively. Personally, I like difficult tasks, and this is a difficult task, mainly because I am visiting the message boards of other regions so that I can become more familiar with those regions. This goes a long way in gathering the right information so that ambassadors to those regions don't go in 'blind' on a diplomatic assignment.
3.What can you say about your work you have put into your office?
Difficult and often time consuming. This is especially true because of what I was handed as a ministry. Foreign affairs via the MoEA had been neglected mainly because of general inactivity all around. The work of putting it all back together and getting it up to par is actually difficult because of the time consumed.
Do overall, the work is very challenging and in most aspects, quite enjoyable.
4. Do you think your time in office for the june-july Administration have been a success?
Yes, because of what has been accomplished so far but it hasn't progresses as quickly as I thought it would because I'm essentially trying to rebuild a lot of things from scratch. I'm actually pleasantly surprised at what I have been able to accomplish so far given the shortness of terms in ministry/cabinet positions. Keeping up with what is going on in other regions is the most time consuming, though. I want to get it right so that everything can go into operation at once instead of bit by bit.
5. What can you say about your ministry?
It's coming along and it's (as all ministries are) a work in progress that needs to be tweaked along the way as part of a continuous process.
6. How do you plan to improve the region with your powers?
One of the improvements I want to implement is better cooperation and communication between all of the ministries and other parts of government that bear directly on External Affairs. The MoEA is essentially our 'eyes' on the rest of NationStates, not just on those regions with which we have embassies or alliances, and those 'eyes' belong to every department of government to some degree. The more informed we are as a region and government, the better we will function as a region.
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