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Tuesday, October 23, 2007, #202 (1469)
The government says Georgia’s NATO membership bid is hanging in the balance as the alliance’s 2008 summit in Bucharest approaches, while the opposition say there is no longer any chance of promptly moving to a NATO Membership Action Plan, the formal start to the accession process. With elections next year, NATO membership is at once the country’s top foreign policy priority and an issue which lends itself to scoring political points. President Mikheil Saakashvili is making every effort to push for a MAP in Bucharest, lobbying Georgia’s case most recently last week in Lisbon, where he worked the sidelines of a European People’s Party summit. There was a generous outpouring of support for Georgia’s ambitions, though not of the sort that can translate into practical assistance. European People’s Party president Wilfried Martens said he was entirely sure Georgia would make it into the ranks of NATO, and that Europe would be behind the country every step of the way. Unfortunately, that is not entirely true. Western European countries are reluctant to back the American-led initiative to bring Georgia into the alliance, fearing strained relations with Russia. France under President Nicolas Sarkozy is looking more supportive, but discouraging comments from the French defense minister reveal a more ambiguous sort of support than Tbilisi would like. Nonetheless, the Saakashvili administration remains optimistic and ready to tout whatever successes it can find—and the rhetorical support in Lisbon can’t hurt. NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer’s comments on his recent Tbilisi visit, however, can’t be much help. While broadly praising the progress Georgia has made in its civic and military reforms, the NATO chief declined to hint at a timeframe for moving on to a MAP. Arriving in the political storm enveloping the dramatic anti-government accusations and subsequent arrest of ex-minister Irakli Okruashvili, the NATO chief gently cautioned Tbilisi to behave fairly and democratically. There is concern about government transparency, he said, and a continued need for a more independent judiciary—something the government readily admits. The decision makers in NATO are at odds. Georgia’s opposition insist the government’s increasingly questionable democratic credentials, and more crucially the failure to regain breakaway South Ossetia and Abkhazia, are sinking the country’s membership bid. But the biggest hurdle is European unease over Russia. Despite de Hoop Scheffer’s reassurance that Moscow will play no factor in NATO membership decisions, Saakashvili and his ministers will need to continue to amass moral support to counter some governments’ wariness of pushing things too far, too fast with the Kremlin. |
NATO membership a political football