ACT TO ESTABLISH THE EUROPEAN CORPS
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Councilor Francis Plessis of Leagio stands up to speak
"I would like to thank Councilor Firouz and Comissioner Reynels for providing clarification on the bill. In addition, I think the Commonwealth would currently be supportive of the measure to have a well-funded and supplied Eurocorps. The question of whether or not if the Commonwealth could aid in providing logistical support will be an issue for the President and the National Congress to decide under the Leagio Constitution of 1904. However, i do have another question about the Act. Right now, the Commonwealth Ground Forces are currently on watch-mode meaning that they are to be on the lookout for any activity that wishes to eliminate or kill the delegates of the On-going Constitutional Convention being held in a secret location within Leagio, which is not martial law. Now suppose that the Act is passed, is there minium of what a member-state could send to a volunteer? Like if Leagio at the moment can not send a Division? Then could the Commonwealth volunteer a regiment or a battalion for example?"
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Cllr Tupac Shakur stood to speak
"Thank you, Commissioner Reynels, for introducing this Bill. I fully support the creation of the Eurocorps and the general principles of this Bill. Our region is divided, yes. Our region has internal problems, yes. But we can only address those problems and Make Europe Great Again if we are secure on the outside."
"I believe that Section II would benefit from some clarification, and perhaps, some improvement. The term 'enemies of the European Union' is barely defined at all, and I'd like to see, if possible, some process set out for identifying an enemy of the region. I appreciate decisions will have to be made quickly, and I'm open to suggestions about how that can be codified and subject to scrutiny, perhaps after the fact."
"Moreover, I do not agree that all Nazi or fascist regions should be automatically classed as enemies of the European Union. I don't think it's wise in any case to declare hostility against any region that doesn't already have hostile relations with us, let alone do so on a blanket basis. And we know that Nazis and fascists tend to be quite belligerent, and may see this as a green light to attack us."
"Therefore, I'll propose one amendment now, with another to come later:"
Section II, Clause I, leave out "including nazi/fascist regions"."I'd also like to request that the debate period be extended."
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Speaker Firoux rose to speak.
"Sure thing, I will extend the debate for a further 72 hours until 03:00 GMT June 2nd, 2020.
Councillor Plessis, that is a good question. I suppose that is for the Eurocorps to decide once they've been created. Only the Eurocorops themselves would know what sort of forces they needed or were lacking at any given moment. I'm not sure how picky the Eurocorps Commander will be, but presumably, they would want to accept whatever they feasibly could. However, again, I feel like that is for them to decide.
I agree with Councillor Shakur, and believe that the term 'enemies of the European Union' is a big vague. Instead of elaborating on it, I feel that we should just eliminate the term. Do we really want to have enemies, and should we be invading them? I want to hear from the Commissioner as to why fascist and Nazi regions were specified."
Speaker Firoux seated himself as Commissioner Reynels stood to speak.
"For clarification, I specified Nazi and fascist regions because the overwhelming amount of those regions are actively in the business of invading other regions. As these Nazi and fascist regions tend to be incredibly militant and imperialistic, and due to their political ideology, they're sometimes at the receiving end of being invaded themselves by coalition forces of democratic regions such as our Grey Warden allies, other anti-imperialist regions or anti-fascist regions.
While the European Union may not be enemies of any particular Nazi or fascist region, I think it would still be in our best interest to support these coalition efforts to stamp out fascism and Nazism, as well as to permanently put their efforts to invade other regions to an end. This may put the European Union a bit too much on the map, and yes, it could green light fascist attacks against us. However, I will say that the vast majority of regions which work to defend other regions have already signed anti-fascist proclamations, and they'd all likely advise us that Nazi and fascist regions attack regions indiscriminately anyway, regardless of what our attitude towards them is."
Speaker Firoux nodded as began.
"I'm still a bit uncomfortable with the European Union having a list of enemies, and I'm not sure if I would even want to send our Eurocorps forces to attack them. I do agree, though, that if were to have enemies, that the list should begin with Nazi and fascist regions. If our allies are organizing coalition strikes against these regions, then I believe it should be our duty to support these efforts if we can. But I'd prefer if our list of enemies began and ended there. For these regions, I think we should just eliminate the phrase 'enemies of the European Union'.
Here are my two amendments."
Amendment II
SECTION II. DEPLOYMENT
I. The Eurocorps may only be deployed to defend the European Union and its allies, to defend and liberate regions which have been invaded or occupied by other regions,or to attack enemies of the European Union,includingor to attack Nazi or fascist regions.Amendment III
SECTION IV. FUNDING AND EQUIPMENT
I. The Eurocorps shall be entirely funded by the European Union and its budget.
II. The Eurocorps shall procure its own equipment and shall receive enough funding to adequately equip, train, transport and operate all its forces.
III. Member states which contribute forces to the Eurocorps will not be responsible for equipping their volunteer forces once they are in service to the Eurocorps. However, once a force is no longer in service to the Eurocorps, then that force shall surrender all equipment back to the Eurocorps. -
Councilor Francis Plessis of Leagio stands up to speak
"I approve of the amendments. But i do have another question and this is one that the President of the Commonwealth wanted me to ask. But does the act allow defensive military organizations to volunteer units? Say for example the recently established Allied Defense Organization, also called ADO? Could they theoretically be allowed to be active with the Eurocorps with a common goal?"
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The purpose of the Eurocorps is to be its own institution, not to answer to other military institutions. The legislation identifies member states as contributors to its forces, not other military organizations.
Antoni Reynels
Commissioner of Foreign Affairs -
Councillor Greene rose to speak, for the first time in quite a while.
The Union of Duxburian Dominions has a long tradition of service in defense of the region and is thus proud to support the establishment of Eurocorps. Furthermore, we support funding its equipment and missions out of the European budget. While nations must retain key elements of responsibility for their contributions, we shouldn't have a bunch of different standards of varying quality. The institution needs some basic level of standardization if it is to succeed as a fighting force. That said, those standards should be left to them to decide.
Like it or not, the European Union actually already has enemies arrayed against us. The Union of Duxburian Dominions has been a member-state for about 15 years now and has witnessed 6 or 7 major assaults on the region, all of which failed. In one particularly egregious incident, forces from 32 nations in a wide invader coalition attempted to takeover the region, including forces from 2 regions we held embassies with.
Historically, the burden of defending the region has disproportionately fallen upon the shoulders of a handful of prominent Europeans, such as Benevolent Thomas, Deadeye Jack, and in recent times, Vincent Drake. They have all engaged nazis and fascists in direct military conflict for years, so it's not like nazis and fascists don't know about us. We are very much on their radar. Our situation is less like "us considering a list of enemies" and more like "enemies already have us on lists". You can bury your head in the proverbial sand, but that won't make these hostile forces magically go away.
That said, the most practical approach would be not to automatically target any nazi or fascist or invader region that comes along, it would be to allow discretion to take offensive action on a case-by-case basis. We also can't be left toothless by a clause that prohibits all offensive action, that would just be inviting free hostility. So, I offer an amendment:
SECTION II. DEPLOYMENT
I. The Eurocorps mayonlybe deployedto defenddefensively to protect the European Union and its allies, or to defend and liberate regions which have been invaded or occupied by other regions. The Eurocorps may be deployed offensively if the target meets institutional criteria as a belligerent threat to the European Union.
What the criteria are can be formally published by Eurocorps and subject to approval by the Internal Affairs Commissioner. The Council retains the ability to serve as another check on what Eurocorps can and cannot do.
To address Councillor Plessis' question, military organizations such as the ADO have purely intra-regional scope while Eurocorps has purely inter-regional scope. Organizations like the ADO physically/literally can't participate in inter-regional missions the way individual member-states can, so it only makes sense to permit member-states to contribute.
Wesley Greene
Councillor of the Duxburian Union -
It has been without a doubt that the Duxburian Union has played a very central role in defending the European Union from foreign invasion for well over a decade now. As such, I am inclined to listen and heed to Councillor Greene on the matter. I find his amendment on deployment to be the most satisfactory one yet, and such, I withdraw my amendment on the matter and replace it with this amendment, which only makes some minor cosmetic changes to the preamble.
Amendment III
PREAMBLE
The purpose of this Act is to establish a voluntary military corps to protect the European Union and our allies from foreign invasion, to liberate regions which have been invaded or occupied by other regions, orto aid global efforts to combat fascism.take offensive action against belligerent threats to the European Union.Edward Firoux
Council Speaker and Councillor for Inquista -
The discussion period has now come to an end. There are FOUR amendments to be voted upon. These are the proposed amendments:
Amendment I - Proposed by Cllr. Shakur
SECTION II. DEPLOYMENT
I. The Eurocorps may only be deployed to defend the European Union and its allies, to defend and liberate regions which have been invaded or occupied by other regions, or to attack enemies of the European Unionincluding nazi/fascist regions.Amendment II - Proposed by Cllr. Firoux
SECTION IV. FUNDING AND EQUIPMENT
I. The Eurocorps shall be entirely funded by the European Union and its budget.
II. The Eurocorps shall procure its own equipment and shall receive enough funding to adequately equip, train, transport and operate all its forces.
III. Member states which contribute forces to the Eurocorps will not be responsible for equipping their volunteer forces once they are in service to the Eurocorps. However, once a force is no longer in service to the Eurocorps, then that force shall surrender all equipment back to the Eurocorps.Amendment III - Proposed by Cllr. Greene
SECTION II. DEPLOYMENT
I. The Eurocorps mayonlybe deployedto defenddefensively to protect the European Union and its allies, or to defend and liberate regions which have been invaded or occupied by other regions. The Eurocorps may be deployed offensively if the target meets institutional criteria as a belligerent threat to the European Union.Amendment IV - Proposed by Cllr. Firoux
PREAMBLE
The purpose of this Act is to establish a voluntary military corps to protect the European Union and our allies from foreign invasion, to liberate regions which have been invaded or occupied by other regions, orto aid global efforts to combat fascism.take offensive action against belligerent threats to the European Union.Please carefully read each amendment before voting. Amendments I and III clash with one another, so please be careful to choose between one of the two.
Voting on amendments begins NOW and will last until 16:45 GMT June 5th, 2020.
I vote FOR Amendments II, III and IV. I vote AGAINST Amendment I.
Edward Firoux
Council Speaker and Councillor for Inquista -
I vote FOR amendments IV, III, and II
I vote Against amendment I
Councilor Francis Plessis of Leagio
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I vote for Amendments II, III, and IIII. I vote against Amendment I.
Wesley Greene
Councillor of the Duxburian Union -
After being announced as a re-elected councilor, van Allen immediately rushed to the EU Council Chamber.
I vote FOR Amendments II and III
I vote AGAINST Amendments I and IVFriedrich van Allen
Councilor, Kingdom of Reitzmag -
I vote FOR amendments II, III and IV.
I vote AGAINST amendment I.Donald D. Tusk
Councillor for Spain -
I vote FOR all Amendments.
Mrs. Azaya Dubecq
EU Councilor for Nofoaga -
I vote FOR Amendments II, III and IV.
I vote AGAINST Amendment I.Ms. Rice
Councillor, The Republic of Sunkist -
I vote FOR Amendments II, III and IV. I vote AGAINST Amendment I.
Carita Falk
Cllr. for the Archrepublic of Vayinaod -
I vote FOR Amendments II, III, and IV.
I vote AGAINST Amendment I.Cllr Tupac Shakur
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Voting on amendments has now closed. There are 9 votes for Amendments II and III, 8 votes for Amendment IV, and 1 vote for Amendment I. There are 8 votes against Amendment I and 1 vote against Amendment IV.
Thus, Amendments II, III and IV have PASSED. Amendment I has FAILED.
The legislation has been modified to reflect the amendments which have been passed. Final voting begins NOW and will last until 06:30 GMT June 8th, 2020.
On behalf of the Most Blessed State of Inquista, I vote FOR this Act.
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I believe that these kinds of institutions shall be treaty based and shall not therefore be compulsory of member-states to participate.
With this, I vote AGAINST this act.
Friedrich van Allen
Councilor, Kingdom of Reitzmag -
On behalf of Icholasen I vote FOR this VOLUNTARY European Military Corps.
Duchess Poppy Carlton-Romanov
Councillor for Icholasen
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On behalf of the Republic Nofoaga, I vote FOR this act.
Mrs. Azaya Dubecq
EU Councilor for Nofoaga
The Kingdom of Spain
