[CP] Update Two

Day 2,883, 13:56 • Published in Netherlands Netherlands • by Het Catshuis

Dear citizens of the eNetherlands,
We're roughly a week into the current presidential term and all still looks bright. While that may not exactly be true as many dangers are creeping up in our backyard, we've had a productive and pleasurable week so far. The different ministries have kept our citizens busy and our media is a cradle of activity and enlightenment (depending on your point of view). The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has published an article for the first time in months, which can be read here. Others include the ever continuing work by the Ministry of Home Affairs, one welcoming our new citizens and the other wrapping up the contest held last month. The first one triggered a myriad of articles on our society and activity and general. I would like you to refer to Mattio's article on that, which I fully agree with.

The UK & Stuff
As many have noticed already, we have decided to leave the United Kingdom. This is most importantly a pragmatic decision. We are finding ourselves engulfed in a sea of possible enemies, if provoked. To the East, Germany is still lingering, a formidable foe that we've come to terms with out of necessity and perhaps new-found friendships (hail #eunl and NSPP) since the war between our two countries a few months ago. To the West, we have the United Kingdom, essentially putting a knife at our throat as well ever since the German attack. However, those two neighbours can be balanced out and a perpetual war with either of them seems far-fetched and unneeded.

However, in the past few weeks most of our major allies have been given a great beating. Canada, one of our biggest allies, has been devastated by the revived Albanian nation who seeks refugee from Serbia in North-America. Serbia itself has been given some severe beatings as well. Hungary has been struggling keeping its sphere of influence under their control, by the efforts of Croatia and Greece. Slovenia has been kicked back out of its recent conquests (including the UK and Belgium) and is far away from us now. Argentina was beaten back in an attempt to invade Europe through Canada. Meanwhile, the revitalized Spanish nation in cooperation with Croatia have swept through our friends in France, all the way to our borders. Only Belgium is sandwiched in between and they too are in a delicate position as a result of that.

The ingredients for an easy wipe for the eNetherlands one could say. However, sometimes cooler heads will prevail to ensure the integrity of their nations. We've sat down with some of the nations in the region and have come to the conclusion that there will be a bit of a de-escalation in the area, hence the Netherlands leaving the United Kingdom (which was never meant to be a permanent objective). We may not be a primary target (and that saves us regularly), but we can still be a major pain in the ass and will use that fact to protect our independence, even if it's just as a deterrent. My primary objective will always be to protect our independence. In this case, leaving the United Kingdom was an easy price to pay. We indeed hope that this respect goes both ways.

The Economy
Recently I opened a topic in Congress about our economic policies. While it may be relatively hopeless to do anything at all in that context considering our economy which is simply limited by our size, there may me some options to get some things winding up in here. Not to mention that all our economics are basically the same ever since we held only 2 regions in a far-away past, while we know hold semi-permanently 4 regions and occasionally even more. I invite you all to join this discussion. Should we raise taxes to fix our budget deficit, or should we lower them instead to stimulate production and depend on even more private funding? Should we open up more gold for Training Grounds and push such programs aggressively to as many Dutch citizens as possible? Is there any sense in possibly funding people their companies? All questions which are relevant to the entirety of the eNetherlands.


Regards,

NoTie112,
Country President