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On February 15th, President Pichtonia assured the Europeian Senate that "all" issues raised by the Senate on the matter of the Inter-Regional Chat (IRC) were under "ongoing discussion".
But recent public and private revelations are calling that claim into question.
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The Inter-Regional Chat (IRC) had been an old idea -- so old, in fact, that many members were shocked when it was announced having had no inkling that it was still in the works.
North East Somerset had shopped the idea to several foreign policy thinkers in Fall 2020 and many folks gave a tepid buy-in, liking the concept. But for some of us, including myself, that was the last we had ever heard of it until it hit the floor of the Senate.
But behind the scenes, wheeling and dealing slowly drug the project closer to completion. President Sopo gave a green light to the idea, handing the baton to President Peeps. Multiple respondents indicated that Peeps did the most to push the idea toward a substantive treaty, and the text was getting close to being ready to present when President Pichtonia took office.
It seems that when Pichtonia took the reins, the same brain-trust who had been a part of the negotiation process so far were still running the show -- with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under Monkey sidelined or frozen out. When presenting the treaty, Pitchonia thanked Kuramia, Malashaan, but Peeps was singled out for “[having] graciously agreed to stay engaged in negotiations.” Pichtonia also applauded Peeps in Discord again, saying: “Big thanks goes out to @Peeps.”
Minister of Foreign Affairs Monkey told ENN, “I pretty much found out when it was presented to me as a Senator.” He added that Pichtonia had given him a heads-up via DM a few minutes before the draft was formally dropped on the floor.
While most of the region showed strong support for the new initiative, several Senators and citizens had questions about the IRC. Internally, Senators Monkey and Calvin Coolidge became perhaps the most skeptical of the project.
On February 7th, then-Speaker Coolidge pinged the President again for answers to questions posed several days before. The President was testy, replying, “I acknowledge all your questions, I did read them at the time, too - whenever there's a new message in here, I get an alert. As it stands, we're waiting for input from all the various regions and for any amendments that we may have to make.”
On February 8th, after reading the latest rounds of replies from the President, Speaker Coolidge made his position plain: “If Europeia and the founding partners of this new discord server are not all guaranteed admin/moderation over it, then I cannot support this endeavor.”
Before adding: “I know we are currently pursuing language changes regarding UPC's comment, and I hope that my comments have also made their way into discussions.”
Coolidge’s point can be summarized as this: Europeia needs a guarantee that one of our admins will be involved in the administration of the server -- and that was a dealbreaker for him.
When the next draft presented to the Senate didn’t address those concerns, Coolidge followed up: “Thank you for the language update, Mr. President. Will you be answering my questions as well?”
President Pichtonia emphasizes that the matter is under discussion, “You last said that you hoped your comments would also make their way into discussions [...] we've indeed taken it into the discussion and that discussion is still ongoing.”
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Amid the chaotic start of a new term, few noticed when President Calvin Coolidge told the Senate on February 23rd that: "As of today, I have presented a language addition addressing concerns from this body that were not brought for discussion in the previous term, and I will update you as discussions progress."
But yesterday, the stakes got exponentially higher as the President informed the Europeian Senate that those late language suggestions were rejected by the other IRC regions.
"Senators, I know this has been a very drawn-out process, but we are nearing the close. My language suggestion was not approved, so the language remains the same as it was before."
Why did President Coolidge have to submit late language suggestions to the IRC when President Pichtonia had told the Senate that all of their concerns were under "active deliberation" nearly a week before Coolidge would take office?
Today, in a response to Senator Monkey, Coolidge again confirms that the changes were not presented to the IRC Committee prior to him taking office:
"I think our ability to negotiate was severely handicapped, given that the amendments I wanted to pursue, while presented to the previous administration in a reasonable time, were not presented to our partners until my term began, close to a month later, when things were much more set in stone. So, while it is disappointing, I cannot hold that entirely against the IRC."
ENN has also verified with two independent sources that President Pichtonia's claim that matters were under "ongoing" or "active" discussion was, at best, a significant embellishment of what had actually happened.
Within the IRC Representative group chat, President Pichtonia told the regional representatives that the revised text he would subsequently post in the Senate looked good, and then briefly tacked onto the end: “Additionally, I think it would be worthwhile if we agreed on the initial admin team before ratification."
No further discussion of the matter ensued in this official group chat, though one source indicated that Pichtonia's close relationship with Serge from The East Pacific may have brought the conversation into side channels. But President Coolidge's announced inability to secure the treaty revisions suggest that such sidebar discussions, if they occurred at all, were apparently preliminary and surface level.
In response, Pichtonia has told ENN that President Coolidge "isn't wrong" but that the greater picture presented is "misleading."
"Calvin would have liked to us include in the treaty either that every region has an admin or even to explicitly name them, [but] we were informed, that this would probably not find a majority with the other regions, so instead we asked whether the regions involved could agree amongst ourselves, not as an amendment to the treaty, to the initial admins before ratification."
Pichtonia later told ENN that it seemed like, in the chat, that Zuk (Delegate of TEP) also agreed with the theoretical suggestion to decide on admins before the chat was unveiled.
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President Pichtonia's final days in the Goldenblock -- and chances for a second term -- were scarred by the mishandling of the military operation in The Embassy.
But with the Europeian Senate now undecided on ratifying a historic treaty because of a failure to secure changes that President Pichtonia assured the Senate were under "ongoing discussion," the greater foreign affairs dilemma of his administration may only now be getting revealed.
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