Applicant countries lobby hard for a seat at the NATO table

Date: 03/12/1998

By Simon Taylor

AS NATO foreign ministers prepare to meet in Brussels next week, the Baltic States and South East European countries are lobbying hard to join an organisation which means as much in economic and political terms as it does for national security.

As one diplomat from a country not yet invited to join the defence pact put it: "Once you are in a respected organisation like NATO, investors and major companies think it is a safe place for them to do business."

For Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary, enlargement of the organisation is moving faster than their bid to join the EU.

All three countries are expected to become full NATO members by next April's 50th anniversary summit in Washington at the latest, while full EU membership is not expected until 2002 at the earliest - and probably considerably later.

Foreign ministers from the trio have been invited to attend next week's meeting of 16 NATO foreign ministers in Brussels, although they will not be able to take part in any decision-making.

At the two-day summit which begins on Tuesday (8 December), ministers will focus on a range of NATO operational issues including Kosovo and a review of the mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

They will also address internal questions including whether to give even earlier membership to the three countries already invited to join their ranks and step up cooperation with the 27 other countries bidding for NATO entry which have signed up to the organisation's Partnership for Peace programme.

Central and east European countries are pushing for NATO membership just as hard as they are working towards becoming members of the EU. For the leading applicants, being in the world's most powerful defence organisation is seen as a way of closing a chapter on their past under the Soviet system. "All countries want to shake off the odium of being seen as eastern and poor," said one defence expert at the UK's Royal United Services Institute in London.

They are also keen to ensure that they can observe battles such as the conflict in the former Yugoslavia and fighting in former Soviet Republics like as Chechnya from within the western camp, and launched their bids for membership of NATO in the mid-Nineties at the same time as they applied to join the EU.

"No one knew what would happen in Russia and the Ukraine. We thought any instability could spread to our region," said one diplomat from a country which shares a border with the EU.

For the applicant countries, the meeting to celebrate NATO's birthday next year is seen as key in establishing the pace of the organisation's enlargement in the near future.

Romania and Slovakia are hoping that the positive comments on their membership hopes made at the Madrid summit will be followed up with a definite invitation.

The three Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) are also making strenuous efforts to join the defence pact, but existing NATO members have so far been reluctant to send them strongly encouraging signals because they were only recently part of the Soviet Union's territory. Diplomats from the Baltic countries deny, however, that this will be a serious barrier to their membership hopes.

Like most of the applicant countries, they believe decisions on whether to invite countries to join NATO's ranks will be based on political criteria and not on whether a candidate has fulfilled requirements for membership, as is the case with EU enlargement.

"Becoming a member of NATO depends on how you fulfil the obligations of membership. I do not think that having been a part of the Soviet Union makes development any slower than in a country like the Czech Republic," said one. "It will depend on the general situation in the world."

Although those anxious to join the military alliance have to prove that their armed forces can work with existing NATO members' forces, defence analysts maintain that the organisation can show a great deal of flexibility if the political will to get a country on board is strong enough. They cite the example of Germany, which took ten years to integrate fully with NATO when it joined in the 1950s.

All sides agree that the US' approach will be decisive in determining how far and how fast NATO expands in the coming decade.

If and when Washington agrees that an applicant should be allowed to join, the alliance's other members can be expected to fall into line.