External Affairs Oversight Committee Thread

Hello, following the Delegate Directive announcing its creation and the subsequent announcement of its membership, figured I'd make an official topic for the business of the committee.

I was elected by the other members as chairperson of the committee and will be posting minutes of meetings and other announcements. If citizens of the region wish for us to put questions to the Ministers of the three ministries that we are responsible for, feel free to ask here or to contact one of the members.

Current members:
@St George (Chairperson)
@Angshire
@Haor Chall
@Marcus Antonius

RE- Discord message in External Affairs Committee Chamber :-MadJackToday at 2:32 PM
Feel free to ask any questions you have about the report in our topic in the RA https://forum.thenorthpacific.org/topic/9191221/

Quite surprised to hear about the re-shuffle - 'Therefore, Praetor and Brendog have agreed to stand down from the ministry as Deputies.' I wonder what was behind these decisions?

How may Deputies does FA have?

Marcus Antonius:

RE- Discord message in External Affairs Committee Chamber :-MadJackToday at 2:32 PM
Feel free to ask any questions you have about the report in our topic in the RA https://forum.thenorthpacific.org/topic/9191221/

Quite surprised to hear about the re-shuffle - 'Therefore, Praetor and Brendog have agreed to stand down from the ministry as Deputies.' I wonder what was behind these decisions?

How may Deputies does FA have?

Click to expand...

My decision for this reshuffle was down to wanting to make a slight change to the makeup of the ministry. If I'm honest, there has been a bit of a lull, and none of the projects had really made much of a progress, either main goals or their separate projects. This led to me thinking of ways of overcoming this, and I decided that the reshuffle was going to be the best way to solve this. As well as this, I believed that now was as good a time as any to get some fresh blood into the ministry, and as both Brendog and Praetor will be continuing to serve the region as Senior Diplomats, I felt that now would be a good time to give some other members of the ministry a chance.

And moving to your second question, as of writing this, I only have Sanjurika as a Deputy, but once their oaths have been posted I will have three (Vivanco and The Federalist too).

Owenstacey:

My decision for this reshuffle was down to wanting to make a slight change to the makeup of the ministry. If I'm honest, there has been a bit of a lull, and none of the projects had really made much of a progress, either main goals or their separate projects. This led to me thinking of ways of overcoming this, and I decided that the reshuffle was going to be the best way to solve this. As well as this, I believed that now was as good a time as any to get some fresh blood into the ministry, and as both Brendog and Praetor will be continuing to serve the region as Senior Diplomats, I felt that now would be a good time to give some other members of the ministry a chance.

And moving to your second question, as of writing this, I only have Sanjurika as a Deputy, but once their oaths have been posted I will have three (Vivanco and The Federalist too).

Click to expand...

Thank you for your replies, @Owenstacey, very much appreciated.

Owenstacey:

but once their oaths have been posted I will have three (Vivanco and The Federalist too).

Click to expand...

Technically they don't have to take the oath because they're not government officials

Gorundu:

Technically they don't have to take the oath because they're not government officials

Click to expand...

They are appointed by a constitutionally-mandated elected official. They are government officials.

Darcania:

They are appointed by a constitutionally-mandated elected official. They are government officials.

Click to expand...

The Minister of Foreign Affairs is not a constitutionally-mandated elected official.

Gorundu:

The Minister of Foreign Affairs is not a constitutionally-mandated elected official.

Click to expand...

Ah, you were referring to the Deputy Ministers.
It is entirely the perogative of the Minister to defer granting any authority or power to any staff member before a reasonable condition is met.

With regards to the update posted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I ask these questions of Minister @Owenstacey
1. What are the current duties of deputy ministers in your ministry?

2. How does this contrast with the Senior Diplomats, and who, if anyone, is currently on the Senior Diplomats roster?

And a couple of general questions for the Minister as well:

3. Has the delegate tasked you with finding new allies and partners in non-gameplay places, like with how we have partnered with Greater Dienstad?

4. The delegate has a stated goal of finding partners to help develop into new regional powerhouses. Does this program remain theoretical or have steps been taken to bring this to fruition?

And questions for Ministers @Robespierre and @TlomzKrano:

1. As regards the Ministries of Defence and World Assembly Affairs, do they expect in the near future to publish reports concerning their activities.

2. As regards the Ministry of World Assembly Affairs, I would be interested in the policy, if there is any, of the Ministry as regards approval of resolutions at the quorum stage in the World Assembly. I would also be interested as to the Ministry's view, if it has any, on the use of legality challenges in connection with resolutions that are opposed.

3. As regards the Ministry of Defence, what are the current grounds, if there are any, for discharging an NPA solider or officer other than where they are banned from the forum or cease to have a nation in the region and what is the process, if there is one, for discharge on those other grounds.

St George:

And questions for Ministers @Robespierre and @TlomzKrano:

1. As regards the Ministries of Defence and World Assembly Affairs, do they expect in the near future to publish reports concerning their activities?

Click to expand...

I cannot speak for Tlomz, obviously, but I can confirm that the Ministry of Defense does indeed plan on publishing a report concerning our activities the past month. For now, relevant developments can be found in the latest release of the North Star in the NPA Bulletin segment. When we officially conclude our Delegacy transition assignment in the East Pacific there'll be a lengthy post announcing some things so stay tuned.

St George:

And questions for Ministers @Robespierre and @TlomzKrano:

1. As regards the Ministries of Defence and World Assembly Affairs, do they expect in the near future to publish reports concerning their activities.

Click to expand...

In the coming few days yes. RL work emergency kept me busy over this weekend.

2. As regards the Ministry of World Assembly Affairs, I would be interested in the policy, if there is any, of the Ministry as regards approval of resolutions at the quorum stage in the World Assembly. I would also be interested as to the Ministry's view, if it has any, on the use of legality challenges in connection with resolutions that are opposed.

Click to expand...

Approval is at the discretion of the delegate. The Minister can work with the delegate on approvals but its very much a case by case basis with no official mention in the ministry bylaws.

Legality challenges are really only used when a legal issue is seen with a proposal. No real bias is given to being for or against the proposal. If a legality challenge springs up before we issue an IFV, we hold the IFV until after the challenge concludes.

St George:

With regards to the update posted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I ask these questions of Minister @Owenstacey
1. What are the current duties of deputy ministers in your ministry?

2. How does this contrast with the Senior Diplomats, and who, if anyone, is currently on the Senior Diplomats roster?

And a couple of general questions for the Minister as well:

3. Has the delegate tasked you with finding new allies and partners in non-gameplay places, like with how we have partnered with Greater Dienstad?

4. The delegate has a stated goal of finding partners to help develop into new regional powerhouses. Does this program remain theoretical or have steps been taken to bring this to fruition?

Click to expand...

The current duties of my deputy ministers are to process applications for the ministry and to work on their respective projects. For the first half of the term I had Praetor working on a training manuel and Brendog working on updating the Diplomatic Protocol, I didn't have a specific project for Sanjurika, who was mainly focussing on applications. As well as this, they were also helping with the coding and distribution of anything from Comms, and have been given the chance to help draft stuff for McM and I.

The Senior Diplomats are, at the moment, a mainly advisory body. They have been advising both me and McM on any situations we have needed advice in and were covering the TEP coup with us, having an input on the report that was published to the RA. They are also involved in discussions over the status of embassies and treaties, with them having a chance to offer their opinions on the repeal of the Albion Treaty. The current list of Senior Diplomats are: Pallaith, Brendog, Bootsie, COE, El Fiji Grande, Tlomz, Sanjurika, Eluvatar, Praetor, SillyString, and Siwale. As well, Robespierre is also in the channel as the representative from the MoD.

With regards to the third question, no I haven't been tasked with finding any allies from non-gameplay regions.

The regional infrastructure program was started moving forward a little recently, with McM and I currently discussing possible regions that could be involved. My hope would be to move forward with this before the end of the term, but I am unsure if this will be the case as it will take a lot of planning to get everything in place.

“3. As regards the Ministry of Defence, what are the current grounds, if there are any, for discharging an NPA solider or officer other than where they are banned from the forum or cease to have a nation in the region and what is the process, if there is one, for discharge on those other grounds.”

... Must have missed this, but reasoning for removal is usually stated in a dedicated thread. The most recent membership purge I’ve done involves soldiers who were exceedingly inactive, never participated, and in addition to that a lot of their nations ceased to exist. If you have questions about specific people removed please direct those inquires to me.

I resign as chair and as a member of the committee.