NEWS

"No serious objections to draft revisions AGL treaties"
(29 January 2016) - The Voskian government has no serious objections to the draft revisions of two of the main treaties of the international organisation AGL, the Treaty of Aralethe (the founding treaty of the organisation) and the Treaty of Jarjana (the organisation's human rights treaty). Foreign affairs minister Hasan Aliçka made this statement one month and a half before the 56th summit of the AGL, that will take place in the South American nation of Chimor on 19 March.

"If the member states of the AGL manage to adopt these changes, the organisation will have a solid base to exist for another 30 years", the minister said, referring to the AGL's 30th anniversary: it was founded on 2 March 1986.

Previous attempts in the past couple of years to change the treaties failed, as the proposed changes were opposed by some member states. The most recent drafts are less bold (the obligation for member states to sign the human rights treaty that was proposed in previous drafts has been dropped) but as most member states are still studying the new proposals, it remains to be seen if the changes can be adopted this time.
 

Voskian ministers to visit New Courland
(12 February 2015) - A small government delegation will pay a visit to the Caribbean island nation of New Courland next week, it was announced. Ministers Hasan Aliçka (foreign affairs) and Mirlinda Aldaşi-Ryli (economic affairs) will investigate mutual economic interests; last year, New Courland announced its intention of applying for membership of FICT, but hasn't done so yet.
 

AGL Conference puts Voskia aside after Marckonian demands
(9 February 2015) - The Voskian delegation took the first flight home after Saturday's AGL summit in Ostia (Insulantis). During the summit, a Voskian proposal to appoint a new host country for the AGL Investment bank if the Marckonia based Mård-Institute was reintegrated in the AGL, was removed from the agenda without being put to the vote, after member state Marckonia presented this and two other demands to the AGL in exchange for allowing the AGL to reaccept the Mård-Institute; the Mård-Institute used to be an AGL organisation responsible for scientific and cultural research, but left the AGL together with Marckonia in 2004; when Marckonia returned as a member, the Mård-Institute had been replaced already by the Ylieen Centre for Cultural Cooperation, based in Kronenburg, and the Monoghan Institute for the Environment (MIE), based in the Mii Islands. The AGL-Investment Bank, founded in 2011, is based in the Marckonian capital of Marckfontänn as well.

Before insulting our country like this, the Conference should have investigated whether the other two demands were at all realistic", prime minister Luçia Apavia says. As it turned out: they weren't, and the Mård-Institute wasn't reintegrated in the AGL. Especially the Kronenburg delegation is targeted as the bad guy: "Nobody discussed with us if our proposal could be removed from the agenda; Kronenburg just organised a vote about it, which was greedily accepted by most of the member states that wanted to have the Mård-Institute back in the AGL. We were too astounded to counter the procedure", foreign affairs minister Hasan Aliçka told the press.

One of the other Marckonian demands, to reintegrate MIE in the Mård-Institute when the latter was recognised as an AGL organisation again, had no chance of succeeding, since the proposal was not on the agenda, so that decision would have had to wait until the next summit. "We understand that our proposal to move the Investment bank wasn't liked by Marckonia, but the move would have created more equality between the member states. What we don't understand is that apparently it is not a problem at all for the Marckonian delegation to block the move of one organisation from its country and, at the same time, demand the abolition of another AGL organisation and its reintegration in the Mård-Institute. The delegation of the Mii Islands remained surprisingly calm about that during the summit."

The government wants things to change. "The athmosphere within the AGL has to change", minister Aliçka says. "A proposal by the Cilogian prime minister Faus ei Kaarste to restrict the addition of subjects to the summit agenda by having at least three member states approving a subject before it can be put on the agenda, is one step in the right direction, but the entire procedures of AGL summits should be reviewed completely, in order to keep the summits manageable with a growing number of member states. We are of course very pleased that the Marquessate of the Channel Islands joined the AGL as an associate member during this summit, but if everybody keeps talking at the same time, the AGL won't be of much use to anyone."

The prime minister's office has announced that prime minister Apavia has invited the ambassadors of Marckonia and Kronenburg in order to 'evaluate' the AGL summit.
 

Disagreement in government coalition about bonus seat plan
(20 January 2015) - An idea presented yesterday by justice minister Luvidz Ūrtiazes (V-ĢP) to reform the seat division in the parliament after the Greek model by giving the winning party some 'bonus seats', caused some disagreement between the parties in the ruling coalition government. "Bonus seats for the largest party would enable it to form a more stable government; fragmented coalitions as were - and still are - very common in our country, could then be avoided", the minister said during an interview on television. Smaller coalition parties PRÌ (European Integration party), AG (feminists), and NK-ĢP (new socialdemocrats) announced that they interpreted these remarks as criticism on (their participation in) the current government, and the leaders of these parties have asked prime minister Luçia Apavia to clarify her fellow party member's statements. Yet another coalition party, the MS (monarchists), called the plan "extremely undemocratic": "To give the largest party a larger mandate than given by the people, will mean the end of democracy", minister of economic affairs Mirlinda Aldaşi-Ryli (MS) said. "It also means that the parties that aren't the largest, will have less influence than their voters hoped. The majority of the electorate will experience negative consequences of this idea."

Ūrtiazes's plan is however supported by members of his own V-ĢP (liberaldemocrats) and the sixth remaining coalition party MV (centre-liberals), but also by the two opposition parties PD (republicans) and K-ĢP (socialdemocrats), which claim that the idea has a lot of potential. The newly elected leader of the K-ĢP, Kirkē Planta-Vedzudz, agrees that the largest party will benefit from this system, but the plan doesn't change the chances of every party to become the largest, so in that respect, she doesn't think that it will be less democratic. "It will just become more important to win the elections; being second with just a few percentages less than the number one will be of much more significance", she said.

Prime minister Apavia said however that a change of the law is not on the agenda of the government, and that the Ūrtiazes's idea is nothing more than that.

The justice minister made his comments in the context of the early Greek parliamentary elections, which will be held on 25 January. Voskian politicians are regarding the elections with some apprehension, as a victory of the leftist party Syriza may have consequences for the Greek membership of the eurozone and possibly of the European Union as a whole.
 

IP'02 leader Pāvus Luva criticises candidacy Île de Romanhe to host AGL Investment Bank
(5 January 2015) - Pāvus Luva, former prime minister and presidential candidate, and leader of the opposition party IP'02, criticised the possible candidacy of Île de Romanhe to host the AGLInvestment Bank. According to him, the country is to small and remote in order to be able to offer the necessary infrastructure. He made his comments during the popular talkshow of Piupa Taça.

"I had to laugh very hard when I read it: Île de Romanhe wants to have the AGL Investment Bank! Isn't that ridiculous?! They sent someone to mediate in a civil war (in the FICT member state of Tarmorya) and they organised a fairly succesful soccer tournament and now they think they can do or have anything. But I will tell you: the investment bank is far too important to simply banish it to a remote and almost uninhabited islet in the middle of the Pacific Ocean! In that case even Voskia is a better choice! Give the bank to me, if the AGL doesn't want it; I know a few things I could do with the money", Luva said during the talk, which was supposed to be about the increased international popularity of the AGL, which grew from five member states in 2007 to eleven in 2014, with the admission of two new countries awaiting discussion on the next AGL summit, 7 February 2015 in Ostia (Insulantis).

Foreign affairs minister Hasan Aliçka called Luva's comments "rather respectless" towards a fellow member of both the AGL as FICT and urged him to apologise. Further, he repeated that, if the AGL were indeed to decide to move the investment bank or any other organisation, Voskia is still a candidate as well.