Merovia
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Merovian Republic Republique Merovienne | |
|---|---|
 Flag | |
| Capital | Lutece |
| Largest city | Median |
| Government | |
• President | Herve X. Bellirose |
• Prime Minister | Felix d'Arsenal |
| Legislature | National Congress |
| Senate | |
| Popular Assembly | |
| Formation | |
• Duchy of Merovia | 19 December 1119 |
• Companion Stewardship | 14 November 1575 |
• Merovian Republic | 1 September 1816 |
| Area | |
• Total | 264,800 km2 (102,200 sq mi) |
| Population | |
• 2022 census | 33,382,384 |
• Density | 126/km2 (326.3/sq mi) |
| GDP (nominal) | estimate |
• Total | $968.4 billion |
• Per capita | $29,010 |
| Gini | 27.3 low |
| HDI (2022) | 0.960 very high |
| Currency | Ducat |
| Driving side | right |
Merovia, officially the Merovian Republic (Audonian: Republique Merovienne), is a semi-federal republic located in central Belisaria. It is bordered to the north by Hvalheim and Ostrozava, to the east by Schaumberg and Garima, and shares a maritime boundary over the Lazarene Sea with Lihnidos. Its capital is Lutece and its largest urban center is the southern city of Median. The Merovian population, numbering 33 million, is concentrated in the central Merovian plain and the Sumaire peninsula in the southeast. The majority of the country's area with the exception of the built up central and southeastern regions is made up of hills, mountains and wide valleys and canyons cut by the major Merovian rivers, populated by a number of semi-isolated communities made up of diverse religious and ethnic groups. Merovia has long been a fractured, disunited region and persistent hotbed of resistance to the Latin and Holy Audonian Empires of which it formed part. The challenge of uniting and stabilizing Merovia would not be overcome until the arrival of the precursors to the modern Oste Peregrin, which would take control of the territory, pacify latent unrest and in time construct the Merovian identity as the basis for a new and unprecedented Merovian nation.
Today, Merovia is a semi-presidential republic in which power is shared by the officials of the Oste Peregrin and the elected representatives of the Merovian public. The bi-cameral legislature is divided between the Senate, a body which requires veteran status with the Oste Peregrin as a pre-requisite for any seat within it, and the Popular Assembly which is made up of the local deputies and partisan politicians drawn from the general population by open elections. This balance of power is also reflected in the executives of the state, consisting of the Peregrine President elected by the Senate and his counterpart the Prime Minister elected by the Popular Assembly. The Republic maintains the role of the Oste Peregrin within its governance and political system as a stabilizing and unifying force that has been central since the inception of the state, while benefitting from the political legitimacy and efficient redressement of grievances offered by the democratic system. The mixed market economy of the Merovian Republic follows a doctrine of limited intervention under which a general liberal market system is maintained except in those sectors where a free market approach does not serve the public good, such as with postal, transportation and medical services. The nation benefits from general demographic expansion and an accelerated rate of economic development, assisted in part by the policies of the state.
Since its foundation in the early 19th century, the Merovian Republic has been an accomplished diplomatic player on the Belisarian scene. The Republic straddles the divide between the traditionally oriented monarchies of the Periclean such as the Latin and Lihnidosi Empires, and the revolutionary republics of the Kupalnitsa and eastern Belisaria such as Ostrozava and Ludvosiya. Merovia has benefitted greatly from long standing positive relations with both its monarchist and republican neighbors. The Republic is a member of the Society of Latin Peoples and States and the Forum of Nations, as well as a founder of the Lazarene Sea Association dedicated to free and open maritime trade and economic relations across the Lazarene and Periclean seas.
History
Antiquity
The ancient antecedents of the Audonian peoples and by extension the Merovians were primarily Gaulish-speaking celtic people rising to prominence in the early Iron Age.
Latin Empire
The ancient Latin Empire arrived in what is now Merovia in the late 2nd century BCE, conquering the hill tribes and subjugating the Gallic kingdoms of the Tanes-Nieve confluence and the Sumaire valley to their imperial rule. Under Latin governance, the provinces of Sumeria, Raetia and Gallia Lazarensis formed an important military bulwark against the Tervingian Empire to the north and east and served as the jumping off point for the Latin invasion of the island of Lihnidos as well as military excursions into modern day Garima. As a result of its strategically valuable position on the frontier of the empire, these provinces received special attention from the Latin authorities in the form of significant infrastructure projects. The cities of Lutetia, Mediolanum, Girgovia and Bibracte were rebuilt following the Latin conquest, receiving bathhouses, amphitheaters, gladiatorial arenas and large temple complexes as these key urban centers of the Latin era expanded. Aqueducts were built to supply these growing cities with fresh water, particularly in the rugged Sumaire valley where Mediolanum (modern day Median) rapidly outstripped the water supply of the surrounding valley. Roads such as the via militaris were put in place facilitating not only civil commerce but the movement of the Latin Legions across the territory, between the key ports and the many fortifications protecting the borders and commanding the strategically valuable valleys and mountain passes.
The Latin investment in the Merovian provinces hold strong for many centuries due to the value of the region to the defense of the empire, but would begin to weaken around the same time as the rest of the Audonian provinces as Latin power declined in the 9th and 10th centuries. The Merovian regions in particular were deeply divided and slipped easily from the central authority of the empire thanks to its difficult hilly terrain and many insubordinate tribes which became increasingly emboldened by the lack of presence presented by the Legions and the government of the provinces outside of the major cities and forts. The lands of modern day Merovia had largely slipped from any de facto control of the imperial authorities and was beginning to be carved up by local chieftains and Latin potentates by the time of Robert's rebellions in the east which split the Latin Empire and established the Holy Audonian Empire. The warlords which had finished carving up the territory of eastern Audonia with the withdrawal of the Latin Empire become vassals of Emperor Robert of Audonia. Nevertheless, the centuries of decline of the Latins and the turmoil of the Audonian secession had left their mark as the power in the region decentralized and devolved into the hands of petty tribal chiefs and post-Latin warlords who asserted a high degree of de facto autonomy from their suzerains facilitated by the difficult and divided terrain of the region.
Duchy of Merovia
The largest fiefdom of the post-Latin Merovia, from which it would later derive its name, was that of the Gallo-Latin warlord Meroveus (later Merovech). Merovech had taken Lutetia for his capital and established himself in the Tanes-Nieve confluence, commanding the most fertile and wealthiest regions of the surrounding country. After his death in 1094, this fiefdom came to be known within the Holy Audonian Empire as the Duchy of Merovia. The period between 1100 and 1450, remembered as the Merovian Golden Age, was a time of consolidation of Ducal authority and the return of commerce to the region as the Merovian Dukes commanded the overland routes between Garima and the rest of the Holy Audonian Empire. Wealth followed trade as the nobles collected their fees and merchant houses established themselves in the trading hubs of the Tanes-Nieve confluence and the valley of Sumaire. Many of these wealthy individuals made their mark on society through patronage of the arts, bringing a revival of painting, sculpture and architecture to the Duchy. This institutionalized Merovian regionalism and the distinction of the local identity from that of Vannois or Lyncanestria to the west or the Gariman holdings to the east, gradually increasing the pull towards autonomy and independent decision making by the Dukes of Merovia and the surrounding counts. The end of the Merovene dynasty in 1455 and the ensuing power struggle for control of the Duchy marked the end of the Golden Age, as well as a turning point in the relationship between Merovia and its Audonian suzerains with the rise of the Cresence dynasty which broke many of the close associations the Merovines once held with the rest of Audonia.
Wars of Religion
While Merovia had long been a hotbed of heretical religious movements and resistance to the edicts of the Fabrian Church, it wasn't until the mid 16th century that these undercurrents rose to the forefront. The religious repression, carried out by the Cresencine Dukes, was aimed at the Protestant followers of Loussien and de Formier but was also visited on the older and uniquely Merovian heresy of the Calissards. It was the Calissard rebellion, headed by the nobleman Tancrede de Isudune, which swept through the Duchy and overthrew the Cresence dynasty from their seat in Lutece in 1571. Through the following year, Tancrede consolidated his hold over the central basin and the surrounding hills before declaring himself to be in open rebellion against the Fabrian Audonian Emperors, having himself ordained "King in Merovia" by the Calicianist religious leaders. He would be the first and only King of Merovia, being deposed by the invasion of the Gelonian Companies in service to Emperor Charles III. The Emperor declared the reign of the heretic Isudune dynasty to be illegitimate and claimed the Ducal title of Merovia for himself, ruling Merovia through personal union beginning in 1575. The Gelonian Companies, personal mercenaries of the Emperor, became deeply involved in the Emperor's rule in Merovia. The Grandmaster of the Gelonian Companies would be granted the title of Ducal Executor on the 14th of November 1575, representing the official beginning of the military governorship of the Companies (later known as the Route Imperiale) in the Duchy of Merovia and the outlying territories.
The Route Imperiale would continue to wage the religious wars of the Audonian Empire in Merovia for nearly a century, waging war in the hills against Loussienite and Calicianist religious rebels, disloyal nobles who defied the Ducal Executor and the Emperor, as well as the occasional peasant rebellion. As part of this series of war of Merovian pacification, known to the Routiers as the "Long Campaign", the mercenaries would establish Commanderies in the hills and across the countryside. These outposts would become administrative centers of the military government of the Duchy, where the officers of the Route Imperiale would preside over the disputes of the peasantry and the local clans. The jurisdictions of these Commanderies would become the groundwork for the modern Departments and their Peregrine Prefects. In this role as peacekeepers in the Duchy, the Routiers would enlist the help of local Auxiliaries to augment their manpower and carry out the local enforcement duties in the Commanderies, a role which would organically evolve into the modern Merovian Gendermerie as the Route Imperiale would later become the modern Oste Peregrin. In their role as military stewards of Merovia in the Emperor's service, the Route Imperiale pacified but did not eliminate the Loussienites and Calicianists, implementing a policy of religious tolerance as a means to reverse the antagonism of the Wars of Religion and end the constant warfare in the Merovian hills. The status of the Routiers as foreign mercenaries brough it from Gelonia, the Lake Kupalnitsa region and beyond would aid in this endeavor as the Ducal Executors and their men positioned themselves as impartial outsiders and arbiters in the ongoing conflict between clans and religions in a fractured Merovia. Through the course of the 18th century, as the Holy Audonian Empire continued its decline, the Ducal Executors would be tasked with expanding and consolidating the Imperial position in the east against the threats of the northern Hvalheimers, the Transkarminian Empire and later the newly independent Gariman Kingdom in the east. The military stewardship of Merovia remained faithful to the true line of Emperors through the civil wars of the late Holy Audonian Empire, right up until the abdication of Joseph I the last Emperor which heralded the final dissolution of the Empire.
Independence
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In the wake of the collapse of the Holy Audonian Empire, the Merovian holdings found themselves with no de jure authority. Where such countries as Vannois and Lyncanestria were ruled by royal lines which now claimed successorship to the Audonian Empire, Merovia had been governed directly by the Audonian Emperors, administered by his personal mercenary army, and now found itself without a monarch. The Route Imperiale found themselves in the position of kingmaker, with the local nobility and their supporters immediately approaching the Routiers for favor in hopes of being nominated by their Grandmaster to rise to the empty throne of Merovia. Of the two main royalist camps in Merovia, the Isudunians opposed the Routier leadership who denied their wish for an officially Calicianist Merovia, while the Fabrian Cresencines supporting the restoration of the line of last Duke de Cresence to the throne were embraced by the Grandmaster of the Route Imperiale. However, this friendship would be short lived as the Grandmaster, Francis Severe, snubbed the Cresencines by nominating his own nephew Jacques Severe over Jean-Paul de Cresence.
Following an internal power struggle within the Route Imperiale, Severe would be deposed as Grandmaster by his second in command Charles Celian. This upset would hold great significance to the future of Merovia. Celian was a supporter of the burghers of Lutece and the other major city-states and their Republican vision of an independent Merovian state. He re-organized the Routier mercenaries into the modern Oste Peregrin, presided over the drafting of the Merovian Constitution of 1816, deeply integrated the Oste Peregrin into the army and state of the Republic and presided as its first President until his death in 1828. For their support in the foundation of the Republic, Celian would reward the great burgher-ruled cities with autonomy and the right to limited self-rule through the status of federal States, unlike the rest of the Merovian territory which would be governed under Departments in a modernized form of the old Commandery administration. These early years of the Merovian Republic saw the Oste Peregrin retake the role of their predecessors in pacifying and securing the country against separatist movements and the royalist malcontents now fomenting minor uprisings against the Republic, while also pushing for the establishment of a distinct Merovian identity which would encompass all groups within its borders yet be separate from the rest of Audonia. This involved a hardline secularist approach in order to mitigate the effects of the religiously divided populace on national stability, the creation of unified state institutions such as the reformed judiciary and later the system of public schools, as well as the establishment of a Merovian current of civic nationalism with the Oste Peregrin at its core.
Partisan Wars
Geography
coming soon
Tanes-Nieve confluence - central basin
Sumaire - peninsular region, Sumaire valley
Chaine Azur Orientale - eastern hills
Chaine Azur Occidentale - western hills - "les petites scies"
Rhetie - northern alps
Government
Politics
The semi-presidential government system of the Republic establishes the balance of power between the institutions of Merovian democracy and those of the Peregrine administration. This duality represents the two halves of the Merovian social contract, the first an agreement between the people and their representatives and the second between the people and their guardians in the form of the Peregrines and by extension the armed forces. These two halves of the Republican ideal are manifested in the bi-cameral legislature, the National Congress, which is made up of the Senate and the Popular Assembly, and corresponding co-executives in the President and Prime Minister. Each body operates under distinct rules and holds different powers, reflecting the bipartite nature of Republic. The Merovian government has only two branches, the legislative and the executive, with each branch being divided into its Popular and Peregrine halves. The powers of the judiciary, normally taken up by a separate judicial branch in other republican models, are held instead by the Senate in the Merovian system.
The upper house is the Senate, which serves as the voice of the Oste Peregrin in the government and is comprised of prominent retired veterans of the Oste Peregrin. Each seat of the Senate does not represent a particular constituency, and so the exact size of the body is flexible and can be allowed to vary from year to year. The role of the Senate is to present a check to the democratic institutions of the Republic in a manner similar to the high courts of other nations, ruling on matters of the Constitution and determining whether or not laws or executive actions are in accordance with the national ideals. The Senate is vested with the power to block legislative or executive action if they find it to be in violation of the Republican principles contained in the Constitution, as well as the power to appoint and recall the President by majority vote. The President themselves is the head of state for the Republic, wielding limited executive power over civil affairs through the co-selection of the cabinet alongside the Prime Minister, while having considerable authority as the commander-in-chief of the military and the head of the Oste Peregrin. There is no established term for the Presidency, with the incumbent serving at the pleasure of the Senate for as long or as short as is desired. Presidents either resign, are recalled by vote of the Senate, or die in office to prompt the election of their successor. The Vice President, appointed by the President themselves, serves as interim President during the period of the election until a new President is chosen, as well as in any other circumstance in which the President becomes indisposed or otherwise incapable of carrying out their duties.
The Popular Assembly, the much larger lower house of the National Congress, is made up of the elected representatives of the states and departments of Merovia. Seats are assigned to each subdivision with proportionality to their population, following the rule of 1 seat per 50,000 citizens with a minimum of 2 seats per subdivision. There are currently 668 seats in the Popular Assembly, more than half of which represent the five Merovian federal states due to their large highly concentrated populations. Merovian democracy and by extension the Popular Assembly is dominated by the National Democrats and the Institutional Republicans under a de facto two-party system, with one or the other holding a strategic plurality of the Assembly. A minority of seats are held by other political parties as well as independent deputies who are unaffiliated to any political party. The Popular Assembly is the principal legislative organ which votes on proposed bills to create the body of the Republic's laws. While the Senate may propose a bill and may ultimately veto a bill which passes the Assembly so that it may not become law, prime legislative power rests with the Popular Assembly where most legislative proposals are made, where the minutiae of bills are dissected, inter-party negotiations made, and ultimately where the vote to pass a bill towards becoming a law takes place. The Popular Assembly also elects the Prime Minister, who is generally the leader of the dominant party or inter-party coalition in the Assembly. As the head of government, the Prime Minister is primarily responsible for co-selecting the Ministers of the cabinet with the approval of the President and governing the civil administration of the Republic. Because the President can effectively block the Prime Minister from forming a cabinet, the President's office holds the unofficial power to reject a Prime Minister elected by the Assembly and force the election of a new Prime Minister. As with the Presidency, the office of Prime Minister does not have any formal terms of term limits and serves at the pleasure of the Popular Assembly. However, due to the far more common and pronounced fluctuations in the Assembly's political climate compared to the Senate, Prime Ministers of the Republic generally serve shorter terms in office than their corresponding Presidents.
Administrative Divisions
The territory of Merovia is administered through a hybrid federal-unitary system. A Department is a unitary-style subdivision governed by a Prefect and a body of Sub-prefects appointed by the central government, alongside a Departmental council of local elected officials. The Departmental governance system is intended to provide a stable administration to the religiously and ethnically divided outlying regions of the Merovian nation, where a more autonomous provincial government could lead to the consolidation of power by one local group to the detriment of others and ignite an internal conflict. The boundaries of Departments were drawn to break up the ancient and entrenched enclaves and regions in order to discourage regionalism and cultural differences from one valley to the next, while also ensuring that all communities within a particular department would be no more than a day's ride from the administrative center of the Department. This was a security measure to ensure the Prefect would be able to respond within a single day to developing situation in their Department, as well as a means to ensure that all citizens within the Department would have the means and opportunity to appear before a Peregrine official and voice any grievance they may have, allowing the authorities to arbitrate and resolve disputes in short order. Most of Merovia is encompassed by its 15 Departments.
The remaining Merovian territory is consolidated within the five States, sometimes called the cinq cites-etats ("Five City-States") as they are all centered on major urban agglomerations. Each state represents a region that had been under the consolidated power and influence of an urban center, and was primarily controlled by the class of urban elites rather than the military rule of the Peregrine and its antecedents at the time of the foundation of Merovia. Consequently, each of the modern States joined the Peregrine-led government in establishing the Merovian Republic on the precondition of a certain guarantees of autonomy and self-rule, allowing the State governments today to behave as federal constituents rather than unitary Departments. While constitutional law establishes the preeminence of the national laws over the States, they retain a degree of lawmaking autonomy not found within the Departments. The States are led by executives elected from within their subdivisions rather than appointed by officials in the capital. Much of the capital city itself is encompassed within the Lutecian state which administers the city and the surrounding satellite cities and countryside, while the national administration and political apparatus is centered in the Cite de Lutece which is governed directly by the national government and possesses its own Prefect, police and social services, behaving as though it were a Department.
| Subdivision | Capital | Population | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tanes-et-Nieve | Lutece | 2,456,345 | State |
| Val-de-Sumaire | Median | 7,485,496 | State |
| Arvens | Gergovie | 2,246,573 | State |
| Beri | Bibracte | 1,260,734 | State |
| Mesopotamie | Alesie | 5,436,124 | State |
| Legle | Aquile | 1,978,434 | Department |
| Haute Tamare | Volges | 973,612 | Department |
| Tamare Maritime | Narbes | 1,397,460 | Department |
| Vallande | Amstere | 899,100 | Department |
| Sursilvie | Venne | 1,191,900 | Department |
| Ampesse | Sarrai | 864,523 | Department |
| Haute Tirole | Alexandrine | 659,293 | Department |
| Tirole Julienne | Oselodune | 819,240 | Department |
| Chasere | Avaraise | 404,570 | Department |
| Tarantine | Samnes | 970,692 | Department |
| Rhetie Orientale | Ludune | 696,122 | Department |
| Rhetie Occidentale | Vesonte | 745,345 | Department |
| Sumaire Lazarenne | Sicannes | 1,034,701 | Department |
| Sumaire du Sud | Ansire | 973,128 | Department |
| Sumaire Interieure | Roblines | 888,992 | Department |
Law
The judiciary of the Republic finds its basis in the Celian code, a Merovian civil code established after independence to replace the patchwork of feudal laws and legal practices of the defunct Audonian Empire with a rationalized code of law with its basis in the Latin legal tradition. The ultimate source of law in the Republic is the Merovian Constitution, under which is subordinated the source of the National Congress and the legislative authorities, under which the local legal authorities of the five Merovian states are in turn subordinated. The lower sources must agree with the sources superior to it, and are automatically overridden by the superior source in case of conflict. Each subdivision operates its own basic court of first instance along with eight high courts handling major or inter-jurisdictional crimes which together form the regular court system which interpret the facts and adjudicate cases. Of the eight high courts, three oversee five Departments each while the remaining five each supervise a single federal State. Eight Appellate Courts exist along similar lines, which do not interpret facts but sole address appealed cases.
The Cassation Court serves as the principal court of last resort which may interpret the relevant laws and issue rulings in cases appealed from the Appellate Courts, in those cases in which the Appellate Courts ruling does not agree with the ruling of the regular court. The Senate of the Republic functions as the superior constitutional court and the final authority of the Merovian judicial system, wielding the sole power to interpret the supreme source of law that is the Merovian Constitution. Unlike the Cassation Court and the lower Appellate Courts, the Senate is able to rule on constitutional matters without the need for an appeal from a lower court and holds the power to make rulings on matters of compliance and constitutional law in direct response to legislative and executive actions of the Popular Assembly, the Presidency and the Premiership.
Criminal Justice
Law enforcement in Merovia is divided into three tiers. The first is the local police established in individual municipalities which are primarily concerned with public safety as well as preventing and investigating petty crimes. The second is the federal police, which takes different forms across the Departments and States of the Republic. The Merovian Gendarmerie operates as the federal level law enforcement organ across the fifteen Departments in addition to the Cite de Lutece. Each State has its own Civil Guard, equivalent to the national Gendermerie within that jurisdiction. The third and final tier of the justice system is the Ministry of Justice and its national agencies, which hold authority over the Gendarmes, the Civil Guards of all five States, and all local police forces across the country. Maritime police, enforcement pertaining to financial crimes and correctional forces of the prison system all form part of this superior level of law enforcement, as does the National Office of Investigation, Controlled Materials Enforcement Unit and the Special Intervention Force.
Military
The military forces of the Merovian Republic, known as the Merovian Defence Forces, are divided into the Land Army, Air Army and the Maritime Army in addition to the Gendarmes. The Oste Peregrin, primarily a force of the Land Army, is the controlling organ of the military which exercises authority over the four branches of the MDF the general operations of the military. The governmental extension of Peregrine authority likewise controls the Ministry of Defense through the Presidency, solidifying the Oste Peregrin's institutional control over military affairs at the highest level. Peregrine officers occupy the chief positions of all four branches, the office of the Merovian Defense Forces Chief of Staff, as well as the seat of the Minister of Defense and the commander-in-chief in the person of the President. The total budget of the MDF and its branches is 29 billion ducats (23.2 billion solidus) or roughly 2.4% of GDP.
The manpower of the MDF is divided into three categories. The first are the foreign-born soldiers which are matriculated in the Oste Peregrin, who are by necessarily volunteers. These are distinct from the Merovian born soldiers, some of which are volunteers and professional soldiers while the remainder is made up of conscript forces. This division outlines the difference between the Oste Peregrin, archaically termed the Shock Army or the Strike Army in modern times, and the supporting forces generally termed the Territorial Army. Within this two-track military structure, the Peregrines play the role of the army of attack trained and equipped to undertake complicated and demanding operations on the offensive. In contrast, the Territorial Army is the army of defense which supports the offensive forces, taking up the work of military sustainment and logistics, producing combat units to hold defensive positions, and in the modern day taking up roles related to air defense, cybersecurity and other developing technological aspects of warfare.
Economy
The Merovian market economy is developed to the high standard of its Belisarian neighbors. Although the national gross domestic product of 1.21 trillion Merovian ducats (968 billion Latin solidus) is well behind many of its larger neighbors, the GDP per capita of 36,263 ducats (29,010 solidus) is competitive with the surrounding nations. The nation's economic statistics place Merovia in the category of high income countries. The country has a very high HDI value of 0.960 and a Gini coefficient of 27.3, indicating high life expectancy and standard of living combined with a well educated populace and a relatively low rate of income inequality, all of which are directly influenced by positive performance of the Merovian economy since the crash of 1999 and subsequent reforms. During this period, Merovia has experienced a consistent and stable growth in GDP at an average of 2.5% per year, declining unemployment and a public debt that has been reduced to just 15% of GDP down from its historic high of 70% at the height of the economic downturn of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Much of the recent economic growth has been driven by a stabilization of the financial services and real estate sectors, a boom in the tourism industry, and the growth of pharmaceutical and electronics manufacturing firms in the Merovian industrial sector.
Throughout the modern history of Merovia, the economy has benefitted from principles of liberty and religious tolerance espoused under Imperial and later Republican governments under the Route Imperiale and Oste Peregrin respectively. A policy of tolerance and later of alliance with the burghers allowed merchant capitalism to thrive in early modern Merovia unabated by the religious disputes and persecutions which stifled it elsewhere and which served as the home of the commercial revolution of the Belisarian economy on the basis of trade thanks to Merovia's position at the crossroads of the large western Belisarian empires, the prosperous Lake Kupalnitsa region to the east, and the wide ranging trade connections of the Periclean world. These factors positioned the country to become an early adopter of the industrial revolution and the capitalist mode of production in the early 19th century. The rapid growth of the economy, rise of urbanization and simultaneous improvements in the death rate and life expectancy metrics brought about a major demographic expansion beginning with the population boom of the 1830s and tapering off in the late 1880s. All of these factors transformed what had been an insignificant backwater of the Holy Audonian Empire into one of the most dynamic and advanced economies in Belisaria by the dawn of the 20th century. In the modern era, the economic policy of Merovia has existed between the opposing economic philosophies of liberalism and dirigism resulting in the development of the regulated market model which has defined Merovian economy in the 20th and 21st century.
The bulk of the Merovian economy is made up of the manufacturing sector, which has historically been the main driver of not only general economic growth but the statistics associated with standard of living as well. The textile and furniture manufacturing industries were the twin pillars of the economy in the 19th and early 20th centuries and remain well established in the form legacy manufacturing firms that occupy positions of prestige in the industry. These sectors were supplanted in the 20th century by the electronics industry which today has been largely consolidated into the consumer electronics and telecommunications giants Telemer and Microtech. In turn the emerging manufacturing sector of the 21st century and the Merovian economic renaissance has been the medical products industry and the associated pharmaceutical sector which has established of the main players in the Belisarian medical sector in Merovia correlated to significant improvements in average income in the industry's bastions within the nation. Tourism as well as the film and TV industries dominate the service sector, while agriculture remains an important economic activity in the countryside providing the main source of income for upwards of 3 million Merovians.
Agriculture
The agricultural sector of the economy is dominated by family owned farms across the Merovian countryside with an average size of 7 hectares. With the division of the country's agricultural land into these relatively small parcels, there are over 600,000 individual farms primarily found in eastern Merovia and the Sumaire peninsula. Across the country there are a total of 4.2 million hectares devoted to agriculture. Of this land, 33% is dedicated to grain crops for human consumption, 9% to vineyards, 7% to olive orchards, 4% to citrus orchards and 2% to sugar beet cultivation with the remaining 45% of agricultural land being dedicated to pasture and feed crop cultivation for animal based agriculture. Cattle are the most prominent livestock on Merovian farms, followed by chicken and the domestic pig. Cows are most commonly used for dairy with meat being a secondary product, while chickens and pigs are primarily raised for their meat.
Wine, cheese and olive oil, sometimes known as the "Merovian Trinity", play an important role in the cuisine and culture of the country and are held in high regard. As a result of the status of these products within the domestic market, producers at the level of dairy farms, vineyards and olive orchards have become increasingly focused on the specific qualities and minute characteristics of their products which has earned these international acclaim as high end export products. In the case of wines, large numbers of well established and prestigious wine merchants have emerged as the main interface between the small scale viticulturists and the consumers, creating blends using grapes from multiple sources and undergoing the winemaking process. A similar intermediary structure exists in the realm olive oil production, with the market for high end olive oils characterized by a competition between a number of oil merchants which purchase their olives from the orchards and produce the oil before dispatching it for sale or export.
Manufacturing
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The secondary sector of the economy accounts for more than half of all Merovian economic activity and nearly 80% of all exports by value, in turn forming the basis for the national foreign exchange market and currency reserves. The birth of this paramount industry occurred in the 1830s at the advent of the industrial revolution in Merovia, first with the large scale development of the texile industry and later the growth of the furniture manufacturing industry. These sectors ballooned as they catered both to the rapidly expanding middle classes across Belisaria as well as to the wealthy elites of the continent's many affluent noble families and merchant houses. The growth of these industries spurred forestry and timber harvesting, the cultivation of mulberry trees for silk farming as well as cotton, and later the growth of the maritime rubber trade to provide elastic material for high end clothing production as well as the tropical hardwood trade for the production of fine furniture. The economic explosion generated by these activities triggered the Merovian population boom of the 19th century as average incomes skyrocketed and life expectancy rose, transforming the country from a sparsely populated backwater to the well developed advanced economy it remains into the present day. The role of the textile and furniture sectors has decreased since the end of the 19th century but has remained significant in the country. While the cheap mass manufacturing of clothing has largely moved to other countries, firms producing high end or brand name clothing products and textiles remain well established in Merovia. The furniture industry has diverged into small scale luxury furniture production which is undertaken by a number of small prestigious workshops, and the ready-to-assemble furniture business dominated by the Bazar corporation.
The automotive industry was the next to emerge in Merovia during the advent of the automobile in Belisaria. As with the textile and furniture industries, it experienced a golden era of rapid growth and expansion followed by a contraction in the following decades as the market cooled off and cheaper manufacturing overseas began to outcompete domestic production. Today, motorcycles remain as the last surviving vestige of the Merovian automotive industry which has largely emigrated to other markets. The decline of the Merovian auto industry in the 1940s had ripple effects through the domestic steel and aluminum industries which were already facing significant market pressure and depended on the auto industry to stay afloat. The resulting death of these industries caused the mid century unemployment crisis which would last until the 1950s and the Second Partisans' War, and would contribute to the more protectionist policies which would mark the birth of the economic nationalist political current that has become dominant in Merovia.
Consumer electronics and telecommunications emerged in the latter half of the 20th century as another major pillar of the Merovian economy. Telegraph and telephone company Telemer first entered the consumer and personal electronics business manufacturing commercial computer equipment long before the technology had been sufficiently miniaturized for personal use, entering the industry as a pioneer and laying the groundwork for further capitalization as the technology improved and demand rose. A multitude of technology firms became active in Merovia in the 1990s focusing on computer technology as the Internet revolutionized the market. Many of these firms branched out into household appliances and other electronic products as these too increased in complexity and began to integrate computerized components. Mobile phone and later smartphone manufacturing would be primarily dominated by Telemer, while competitor Microtech would consolidate much of the rest of the consumer electronics and household appliances industry in Merovia. Both corporations remain as major employers in the country, a status which has not availed them against numerous anti-trust judgements made against them in order to preserve a state of competition in the market. These two companies remain the only companies heavily invested in the development of consumer electronics and related technologies with only limited investments in in-house manufacturing, while a multitude of smaller firms have specialized on the manufacturing end of the electronics industry and produce components used by a variety of firms including both Telemer and Microtech.
The Merovian medical sector has been principally a development of the 21st century and a product of government subsidies and incentive programs designed to foster high end manufacturing and development as a means of rekindling the economy following the crash of 1999. The industry faced strong competition in the Belisarian and world markets from Rezese pharmaceutical firms with manufacturing centers in nearby Drevstran as well as from the medical devices factories of Tyreseia on the other side of the Periclean. The presence of these established competitors on the market influenced the development of the Merovian medical industry and its upstart firms, which began to diversify broadly across the pharmaceutical and medical manufacturing industries in order to survive the stiff competition. Many of these firms depended on government subsidy programs to stay afloat during their first years of operation, which proved controversial in a climate of financial uncertainty and high public debt in the early 2000s. This government expenditure would prove a sage investment with the medical industry boom in 2011 which saw a consolidation of the initial wide array of firms entering the industry and a turn to profitability which in turn proved a boon for employment as the remaining firms began to steadily ramp up production and open new plants and facilities across the country. The Bureau of Public Revenue estimated that the total expenditure of the medical manufacturing subsidy and incentive program which ran from 2002 to 2012 had been paid off in net contribution to economic growth by August 2021.The pharmaceutical manufacturing and development industry has largely been consolidated into the Medico and Moulin-Dumas duopoly thanks in part to the high barrier of entry and cost to develop new drug formulas which make larger firms more economically efficient. Medical manufacturing on the other hand remains largely unconsolidated and in the hands of smaller specialized firms.