Smuggling, even with state support and permission, is still something that cannot be openly discussed.
In fact, if Flame Country were to openly ask European governments for what they want, in the current situation, nine times out of ten, the governments would just procrastinate but not outright refuse.
However, rather than wasting time haggling with those annoying and hypocritical politicians, the high ranks of Flame Country clearly prefer to find a few intermediaries, and then use some of the relatively surplus domestic supplies to exchange for things they are interested in like high-precision machine tools and high-performance component technologies.
After all, unlike Flame Country, many of the top precision processing technologies in European countries are owned by private factories, rather than directly belonging to the state.
