No. 3. (07/02/97)      A month of euroatlantic integration (January 1997)

January 2

• Dmitrij Rurikov, president Yeltsin's advisor on foreign politics said: Moscow is planning a large scale offensive against the NATO extension. In the case that the extension takes place Russia may make the visa regulations stricter with the new confederates of the North Atlantic Organisation. The president's advisor said: one of Jelcin's main objectives in foreign politics is "defeating the concept of extending NATO to the east".
• Beside Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary, Slovakia that has an obvious strategic significance, Romania that has said good-bye to its doubtful past recently and Slovenia that only carries its Yugoslavian past as a disadvantage have a good chance to join NATO in the first round of the extension - said the La Libre Belgique newspaper.
• Gyula Horn Prime Minister has significantly improved Hungary's prospects of NATO accession when he signed the basic agreement with Romania - wrote the Wall Street Journal Europe. The economic-political daily published in Brussels quoted Robert Hunter, the NATO ambassador of the USA who said: the agreement was not signed because the two countries like each other, but because of their relations with NATO.

January 4

• In accordance with the previous plans the main topic was the extension of the North Atlantic Organisation to the east, said Helmut Kohl after the meeting with Boris Yeltsin that lasted for more than four hours, and added that the differences of opinions between the Russian and the western standpoint are still rather great. However, the chancellor believes that the negotiations "will result in compromises before the end of this year", because he thinks that "there is no reason for distrust on either side".
• Volke Rühe, German Minister of Defence started his negotiations in the USA, and the Extension of NATO is in the centre of these negotiations. Before travelling away the minister said that he will also discuss the schedule of the accession of the new members with his American partners. The government in Bonn is of the opinion that it is essential that an agreement be made with Moscow before the NATO summit in July, so it is important to harmonise the negotiations of the confederates.
• After the meeting with the Russian president Helmut Kohl, German chancellor said that in his opinion before the end of this year they will find a solution for the debate between NATO and Russia that was created because of the planned extension of the North Atlantic Organisation. "We discussed several ideas, about which I will inform my colleagues in NATO with Bill Clinton among them. I think that this year we will find a sensible solution which considers the safety interests of all the concerned parties" - said Kohl at his press conference in Moscow held before he left for home.

January 5

• It cannot be trusted that the European Union that "will have 26 members within ten years" will be able to operate the same way as the Common Market that had only six members - said John Major British Prime Minister who tried to verify the intentions of London in connection with the "flexible Europe" leaning on the future extension of the EU to the east. Major said: at the moment it is still not clear what kind of results the negotiations about the flexible development will have, but we know already that the EU cannot go in the same direction, at the same time as a complete unit as they did before; this flexibility is an essential necessity".

January 6

• Russia clearly objects to the planned extension of NATO - confirmed the participants of the meeting led by president Boris Yeltsin in Moscow. At the meeting in camera of the Council of National Safety Yeltsin ordered to elaborate the action program that is to assert the Russian standpoint.
• Klaus Kinkel German Minister of Foreign Affairs said that Moscow "will swallow NATO's extension to the east, though it will be very-very difficult, but the West has to be patient and has to strive for strengthening their trust". In connection with the European Union's extension to the east, Germany wants the negotiations to be started at the beginning of 1998 at the latest with the 11 countries that applied for accession, but then they should immediately select the ones with good prospects into the group of those who will be accepted in the first round - said Kinkel.

January 8

• Jevgenij Primakov, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs made the agreement on the special relations between the NATO and Moscow that would ensure the extension of the North Atlantic Organisation in Eastern Europe dependent on lots and lots of conditions repeatedly. Primakov confirmed that his country wants to protect their own safety first of all. For this it is essential to examine the agreement on the European traditional weapons and to modernise it according to the new situation. Among others it should include that NATO's military machinery does not approach Russia in a dangerous way and they do not extend the operational radius of the atomic weapons towards the east.

January 9

• The "structured dialogue" that is going on at present with the countries that applied to the European Union is not structured and not even a dialogue, so it has to be changed as soon as possible - said Hans van Mierlo, Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs in Vienna, who made a journey around the member countries of the Union representing the Netherlands that has filled in the position of the EU's president in office since 1st January. The Dutch politician mentioned the eastern extension evaluated as a "historical step" and the introduction of the European monetary union as the two most important tasks that the European Union is facing.
• Slovakia is able to accomplish the preconditions required for the Union membership as much as any other member of the "Visegrád Group", so Bratislava wants to join the EU at the same time as the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland - said Pavol Hamzik, Slovakian Minister of Foreign Affairs in his interview with the French paper Le Figaro.
• Among Slovakian foreign policy priorities is NATO membership, they can not reach this by the opposition "Showing the country abroad as being an unstable, anti democratic semi-fascist system" said Vladimir Meciar the Slovakian Prime Minister at the joint meeting of the leadership of the armed forces and the defence ministry, the Slovakian Republic Defence Council. And also he confirmed that the government is starting a national debate about NATO membership.
• The German Chancellor in the most determined way is against the idea that the bringing of new members into NATO needs to be postponed. Helmut Kohl at a press conference in Bonn showed that he was convinced that by the summer an agreement would be reached with Russia, and also he said that Moscow's expectations and doubts were completely understandable with respect to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's eastern expansion.

January 10

• Moscow is not so concerned about the first expansion phase but the second. Russia would under no circumstances accept the membership of the Baltic States declared S. Karaganov member of the bureau of the Russian President.
• The west needs to create close co-operation with Moscow. A part of this co-operation could be the official forum of NATO and Russia, through which the two sided daily working relationships could be realised from the highest to the lowest level - announced C. Bertrand ex-chairman of the London Research Institute for Strategic Sciences.
• NATO recommends the creation of a partnership council with Russia. According to the plan sealed by the retiring American defence minister William Perry the continually operating body would be part of the three part Atlantic-Russian charter, which would dispel the reservations of Moscow against the expansion of NATO.
• Javier Solana, Secretary General of the NATO during his Washington visit had negotiations with President Bill Clinton and several other high ranking American leaders about the special relationship to be made between Russia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

January 13

• Michal Kovác, the Slovakian prime minister believes that Slovakia has got a real chance of being among the first of the new NATO member countries, but only if the Slovakian government coalition takes the necessary steps towards the realisation of the principles of democracy and rule of law.
• The NATO expansion policy and through this Chancellor Kohl and Foreign Minister Kinkel received severe criticism from an unexpected source, from Hans-Dietrich Genscher ex-foreign minister. Genscher, in an interview with Der Spiegel, says it is a mistake that a comprehensive European security concept is not on the NATO expansion agenda.

January 14

• Udovenko the Ukrainian foreign minister emphasised: The Ukraine respects Hungary's right to become a member of NATO. We understand the efforts made in this direction and they are not in contradiction to the concept of the whole of Europe security structure.
• Within OSCE a committee needs to be created that, with the participation of Moscow, deals with the European situation, the group can give Moscow a say in economic questions, NATO can negotiate with it on arms limitations, but it should never have the illusion that it can ever be a member of NATO - as written in the analysis in the Washington Post about the expansion of NATO by Henry Kissinger.

January 30

• At the NATO summit meeting in Madrid in July the will still issue the list of countries asked to start the negotiations towards NATO membership if Russian reservations about the expansion of the organisation have not yet been allayed - announced Javier Solana NATO Secretary General in Strasbourg at the meeting of the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe. Solana announced: NATO is preparing for the first new Central Eastern European members to be brought into the organisation in 1999. Membership will help to strengthen the Central Eastern European democracies in the opinion of the chief secretary. He also emphasised: the expansion of the organisation is directed at no one, and I would like to convince Russia of this.