10
Dispatch → Bulletin → Policy
Office of Foreign Affairs: Official Dispatch February 2021
The Office of Foreign Affairs, headed by current Councillor Pantala and Pyrrhia, works to establish and maintain positive relationships with our friends all around the world of Nationstates. We are responsible for overseeing the development and drawing of travel runes, as well as maintaining the gates that will sweep our envoys from the safety of Refugia and deposit them in different regions around the world. Once there, our envoys maintain a presence in the diplomatic sector of that region, delivering news from Refugia to our friends.
Throughout most of Refugia’s history, the Office of Foreign Affairs has been a sleepy place. For the first year of Refugia’s existence, diplomatic relations were only established with two regions. As we’ve continued growing, however, more diplomatic ties and embassies have been opened up, with more possibilities coming in all the time. Our diplomatic strengths have always been stability of the region and positive, friendly relations with those regions we befriend.
Between September of 2020 and January of 2021, Refugia's FA office began processing potential embassies and diplomatic relations at a breakneck pace, holding eleven embassy referendums over those few months. On top of official embassies, Refugia opened up diplomatic offices in The Pacific and The East Pacific. The envoy programme began in October of 2020, allowing Refugia to maintain a presence in its allied communities and keep our friends aware of what is going on within our region.
If you’re looking to establish diplomatic relations or an embassy with us, please read the following. While we don’t have strict requirements for embassies, we do look out for some specific things while making the final decision on whether or not to accept.
Have you done your research on us? Before being able to open or close an embassy, we’re required to put it up to a four-day regional referendum. If you request an embassy without letting the Councillor of Foreign Affair know ahead of time, there is no way they can accept your request before going through the process. This will usually be interpreted as a lack of interest on the part of the requester in Refugia, as they did not research the region.
Does it seem like your region is likely to be active in the future? When looking into this, the Councillor of Foreign Affairs will look at number of nations, activity in the RMB, and how long the region has been around. There aren’t solid numbers on requirements here; rather, it’s up to the FA Councillor based on how they feel about their interpretation. If your region is new, or the number of members is low, you’re more likely to be put in a dossier and checked up on a few months down the line. If your RMB hasn’t had a message in the past six months, that is probably a disqualifier.
Is anything in the region problematic? While this obviously covers excessive shock humour or Nazi imagery, it also goes a little deeper. The Councillor of Foreign Affairs will likely check the stability or instability of previous embassies via your region history page. They will also check your RMB for signs of stress or excessive anger among the member base.
Does anything in the region go against Refugia’s values? We generally only form diplomatic relationships with the people who share our interests and goals. If your region is democratic, focused on environmental and social issues, and inclusive toward politically-left ideas, you’ll more than likely be a great fit for us. If it's centred around hostility, nationalism, or far-right politics, we'll most likely pass.
These are also things that the FA Councillor will be looking into before reaching out to your region. Most likely, before we officially ask for an embassy, the Councillor will join a regional discord as a visitor or telegram the Foreign Affairs person within your region and have discussions to see if things are nice and friendly. We aim primarily to provide a safe and stress-free environment for our members, so we’re going to want to make sure that you too are safe before we give you access to our RMB.