No. 19. (06/06/97)     A month of euroatlantic integration (May 1997)

1st May

• Alfonse d'Amato and Christopher H. Smith American Republican senators warned Slovakian Head of State, Vladimir Meciar in their letter: with respect to last year's worsening of the situation of human rights, Slovakia is not expected to be among the states invited for NATO accession in the first round.

4th May

• The agreement, concluded by Madeleine Albright American and Yevgeny Primakov Russian Foreign Ministers, according to which Moscow resigns its demand that NATO -- independently from the extension -- should commit itself to the collective limitation of its armed forces was qualified as being significant by Washington.

5th May

• The Chinese, the Russian, the Kirghiz, the Kazakh and the Tadzhik presidents signed a treaty in Moscow reducing the armed forces stationed at the former Soviet-Chinese border. The document is intended to be an example setting one for both NATO member states and Central and Eastern European countries intent on NATO membership.

7th May

• Portugal supports Hungary's NATO and EU accession without reservations, said Foreign Minister László Kovács during a press conference held with his Portuguese counterpart Jaime Gama.

8th May

• According to the German Minister of Defence, Volker Rühe, it has been agreed upon that out of the aspiring Eastern and Central European states the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary will succeed in getting into the first turn of NATO extension. "The invitation of Slovenia and Romania is a subject of further dispute" he added in his statement.
• The People's Patriotic League the organisation joining communist organisations held demonstrations in Moscow against NATO expansion. Not too many people took part in the demonstrations organised outside the embassies of leading NATO member states and most of them were elderly people.

9th May

• Based on his New York and Washington talks with representatives from the government, legislation and specialist circles Head of the Integration Secretariat of the Foreign Ministry Ferenc Somogyi said that in practice America completely agrees with the direction and content of Hungary's preparation for NATO accession.

11th May

• The Belgian Prime Minister, Jean-Luc Dehaene is very much for Romania to be in the first turn of NATO expansion. The Brussels government holds that NATO expansion to the east should take place in terms of geographical continuity, and so he believes that beside Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Romania should also be invited to NATO at the July summit in Madrid. At the same time he warned Bucharest against excessive optimism. The organisation brings about its decisions unanimously and up to now they agree in giving favourable verdicts only to Budapest, Prague and Warsaw.

14th May

• Both Russian Foreign Minister, Yevgeny Primakov and NATO Secretary General Javier Solana hold that being able to come to an agreement on the text of the agreement determining the future relationship between Russia and the North Atlantic Treaty is a breakthrough and a tremendous success. If the leaders of all the states concerned pass the document probably to be called "charter" it will be ceremonially signed on 27th May in Paris.
• A completely new way of thinking has prevailed over the past, said the American president on the agreement between NATO and Russia. Bill Clinton considers the Solana-Primakov agreement a historic step that opens the way to a unified, undivided Europe. The President also declared that in contradiction with what Boris Yeltsin, Russian president said in his television speech, Russia had not received any right of veto.

15th May

• Slovak Foreign affairs Spokesman Dusan Matulay rejected opinions according to which Hungarian-Slovak relations and the situation of the Hungarian minority will worsen if Bratislava is excluded from the first round of NATO expansion.

16th May

• In Brussels NATO's sixteen member states officially ratified the charter between Russia and NATO. The Russian Duma asked President Yeltsin to make the agreement available to the representatives.

19th May

• Leader of the opposition Austrian Freedom Party /FPÖ/ Jörg Haider holds that Austria, giving up its neutrality, should join NATO in the first round, together with its bordering states to the east.

21st May

• If Romania is not in the first round of NATO expansion, it will not be followed by disastrous consequences, said Romanian Foreign Minister, Adrian Severin to the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. According to the director of Bucharest diplomacy in this case Romania would still have the intention of joining the North Atlantic Treaty as soon as possible and the administration would insist on following a policy of reform.

22nd May

• No one expects Austria to join NATO immediately and without any particular reason, said Austrian-Chancellor Viktor Klima at a Vienna event of the Austrian Social Democratic Party /SPÖ/.

23rd May

• Yevgeny Primakov believes that Moscow will have a veto in the NATO-Russian Council on matters concerning Russian interests. The Russian Foreign Minister spoke about this while introducing the NATO-Russian charter in the Duma. As it is well known the other party has an opposing interpretation regarding the veto.

24th May

• Russian Foreign Minister, Yevgeny Primakov warned against the NATO accession of the Baltic states. Since in this case Russia would reconsider their relations with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, said Primakov. He emphasised that his country "does not threaten the Baltic republics", but at the same time Russia was definitely against the NATO accession of the former Soviet states.
• In Slovakia a referendum on NATO accession has ended with a participation rate of barely 10%. The referendum choked with complete chaos was accompanied with a series of scandals. The Central Election Committee made a criminal charge against the Minister for Home Affairs Gustav Krajci who instead of the four-question voting paper prescribed by the President had a three-question paper delivered to the voters. The eight opposition parties of the Slovakian parliament declared in a joint statement that after what has happened they were not prepared to negotiate with the government coalition.

27th May

• Heads of state and prime ministers of the 16 NATO member countries, NATO Secretary General, Javier Solana and Boris Yeltsin ceremonially signed the agreement between NATO and Russia in Paris, which according to the joint standpoint of all the parties affected, the document is an important building block towards the creation of the new European security system and leads to the NATO accession of Central European states and ends the cold war era. The 16 page document came into force immediately after signing. After the signing Russian President Yeltsin had a surprise announcement on dismantling the Russian warheads aimed at NATO states.

29th May

• In Sintra, Portugal, talks for Foreign Ministers of the North Atlantic Council /NAC/ has begun on NATO's eastern expansion. At the opening session NATO Secretary General, Javier Solana said, "With this present forum we also intend to demonstrate that NATO is unified in pursuing the right course towards the next century".
  Madeleine Albright, American foreign minister stated in her speech: NATO should insist that countries aspiring for accession to the organisation must meet the expectations prescribed by the alliance as precisely as possible before joining. On the other hand NATO has to make it clear in Madrid that this expansion is not the last one and not a single European democracy will be denied the opportunity to join NATO.
  NATO Foreign Ministers have started to select the Eastern European states designated for membership. It is still Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland that have the best chances although many member states still strongly support the accession of Romania and Slovenia in the first round.
  At the Foreign Ministers' meeting an agreement was initialled regulating the relationship between the North Atlantic Treaty and the Ukraine, it will be signed formally at NATO's July summit in Madrid. The agreement, which is a higher level of co-operation than peace partnership but lower than the NATO-Russian agreement, is the key factor to the stability of Central, Eastern Europe and the whole continent, said the Ukrainian Foreign Minister.
  At the meeting the founding document of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council /EAPC/ that steps in the place of the North Atlantic Co-operation Council /NACC/ was accepted.