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Fluid is the eastern neighbour and the closest partner of the Allied States. The two republics are founding members of the Democratic Socialist Bloc, their frontier is open, their networks meet at three points, and a substantial part of the provision of this country arrives through the transfers that the Fluidian Constitution requires.

The frontier

The eastern frontier was closed in November 1890 and reopened in 1989. During the embargo years it was formally shut and traffic across it continued, because Iosmein declined to enforce the embargo imposed on Fluid in 1949.

The principal crossing joins Valmeza to Ossira, with the road gateway at Corvaluri on the Fluidian side. The two towns work as one, and the hospital between them is operated jointly under Article 182(2) of this Constitution and under Article 186 of the Constitution of the Republic of Fluid. Article 7(4) requires the crossing to be kept open for movement and exchange in peace and in war.

Frontiers within the Bloc are open in the fuller sense as well. A resident of Fluid enters, remains, works, studies and receives care here on the footing of a resident of the Republic under Article 14(4), and a resident of Iosmein has the same standing in Fluid under Article 296(2) of the Fluidian Constitution.

Railways and the transport card

The Iosmen network meets the Fluidian network at Marnesti and Quessina, where through carriages run twice a day and are staffed by both sides, and at Valmeza and Ossira, where seven sections of the Fluidian network continue into Iosmein.

The transport card standard was signed at Dubrazec, in the Ministry of Transportation of Reformed Luces Aporia. A card issued in Iosmein, in Fluid or in Aporia is read by the gates of all three, and a section crossing a frontier is recorded by whichever network the gate belongs to. A gate that cannot check the seal on a record counts the record, marks it unverified in its own log, and allows passage.

Vehicles built at the Vetruna Factory between 1974 and 2009 reached Fluid under the exchanges of 1985, 1987, 1988 and 1990, and some remain in service there. Spares have come from Ferrista under a licence Vetruna granted in 2002.

Exchange and settlement

Exchange with Fluid is settled in goods, labour, technique and knowledge, recorded in physical units through the single external account that Article 111 requires. No unit of settlement circulates in this country, and no resident holds one. The balance of each settlement period is carried forward as agreed deliveries, and the schedule of those deliveries is published.

The balance has stood on the Fluidian side for most periods since 1994. Iosmein is the largest recipient of the solidarity transfers required by Article 303 of the Fluidian Constitution, which are furnished in goods, labour, technique and training, carry no condition touching the internal affairs of this country, and create no debt. What is received is published each year under Article 115(3), by state and by form.

Shared services and standards

The Iosmen hydrological service is part of the joint observation network of the Bloc. Gauge readings taken on the eastern slope are used by the Fluidian warning service, and readings taken on the Fluidian side are used here, because the rivers of that slope rise in Iosmein and reach Fluid within a day.

Two species recorded in the Fluidian catalogue of endemic species were found in Iosmein after the crossing opened in 1989, and both left that catalogue for the general species register.

Within the Bloc

The Bloc was founded at Lindoma in 1994 by Fluid, Iosmein and Reformed Luces Aporia. An act of an organ of the Bloc takes effect in this country only when the Federal Assembly enacts it, under Article 18(3), and the Fluidian Constitution takes the same position in its Article 294.

The joint committee that supervises the settlement of 2017 is composed of one member designated by each of the other member states of the Bloc and two members elected by the Federal Assembly. Its powers and its limits are set out in Article 211, and its work is described on the page dealing with the rescue.

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