For Matthew François, head of the Elthic Green Party (better known as The Greens) it was quite the journey from Forecoaster to Saint Romain. His country had stopped all connections between the two nations since the communists kicked out the previous government in 2020, and the country, especially the Grimwald administration, did not recognize the UNSR at all. While the establishment of the Federal Republic was good news for those hoping for a restoration of relations between the two nations, it is unclear whether Elthize wishes to do so, as the country still only recognizes the United Dominions of Icholasen, the pre-2020 government.
Although his party's members advised against him going to Saint Romain on the fears of being vilified by the pro-Grimwald media, as the fourth largest party in the Elthic parliament, he simply had to be there. So he evaluated the most environmentally friendly method of transportation from Elthize to Icholasen: obviously, automobiles were out. He considered sailing, but that would take too long, as would any marine transit. As a result, the only alternative left was to fly from Forecoaster to Saint Dominico in Inquista, then to Saint Romain. These two flights would be François' first in almost twenty years, which, while he would want to go even further and not fly for the rest of his life, was nevertheless an impressive achievement.
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After finding his way to the conference room, François did not hesitate to speak:
"Ladies, gentlemen, and those who wish to not identify as either, I am honoured to be here today and forever thankful to the most excellent President Anne-Marie David for this incredibly important conference. My name is Matthew François, and I am the leader of the Elthic Green Party, and I have held this position for two decades so far, starting my job in July 2001. I highly value this meeting to the point where I had my first flight since around 2002, and I would like to begin by stating the obvious: The current climate crisis we are facing at moment is one of the worst things we need to overcome as the European Union and as humanity."
"I would like to then talk about our story as The Greens in Elthize... Unfortunately, The State of Elthize has been one of the worst offenders when it comes to ignorance on this very important topic, particularly after 2002, when Former President Archibald Franklin was elected. Around that time, we were making good noise: Our protests and strikes on this crisis, back then we called it global warming, were attended by thousands, and it seemed like the Elthic people were being aware of what they were being led to by our corrupt administration."
"And our efforts were for basically nothing, as the liberals, the right, and so-called "progressives" ignored us, and acted like we were a bunch of crazy people that are just overreacting, they thought we were being nonsensical. Archie Franklin led the anti-green crusade. That corrupt crook directly called me a parasite, saying that I sabotaged the economical progress of Elthize, and at the time we were protesting against fracking. He went as far as directly targeting one of my MPs! That resulted in slander and harassing against them so intense that they had to retire from politics completely, and I wish not to speak of their name to respect their privacy, in case the mob goes out of its way to attack them again."
"We do not have the same energy as we used to have in the early 2000s. The Greens are still getting consistent votes and seats in the Elthic parliament, but our voices are consistently ignored, particularly by Grimwald's administration, which has no issue slandering the opposition as it wants, calling us "troublemakers", saying that all we want to do is cause chaos, whenever we do our job, aka opposing them! Grimwald has no concern for the environment. He, just like his predecessor, keeps relaxing and repealing what's left of our already weak environmental protection laws. At a time when we need to progress and achieve what seems impossible, we are regressing in the name of a couple of florins. And this is why I value this meeting. Elthize is a small country, its story is not one that's told often, so we're ignored. I know this is a long speech, and I apologize for that, but I am forever grateful to have this chance, and I could not waste it with a bad introduction. I wish us all a good meeting, hope we can agree more than we disagree."