High on the agenda of the NATO Bucharest Summit will be NATO’s operations in Afghanistan and Kosovo and the possible enlargement of the Alliance, informs AP, in a study from Brussels. Other issues to be approached – France’s possible full return to NATO defense and planning structures, NATO response force, EU - NATO relationships, global partnership, as well as a new strategic concept. The member states did not come to any agreement on these topics; for example, as far as the NATO enlargement is concerned, there are two different opinions: USA which argues for the acceptance of Albania, Croatia and Macedonia in the Alliance and most of the European member states which advocate limiting the number of new members to one, Croatia only. Georgia’s joint will be taken into consideration, too, but, according to the quoted news agency, this country has few chances to be invited to be part of the MAP programme (Membership Action Plan). Concerning NATO response force (NRF), first, NATO members shall decide whether it will be used for low-intensity missions and in what way it will interact with other NATO’s missions in the conflict regions. According to the NATO spokesman, James Appathurai, there will be a substantial stand – by force (approx. 25, 000 military men), which can be rapidly supplimented in case of necessity, with approximatively other 25,000.
The idea of creating a category of NATO participants above partners but below full members also may be discussed. The proposal was not approved at the last NATO Summit in Riga, but it is still being discussed by the leaders of the Alliance, who consider that New Zealand and Australia are fully qualified for the global partnership. (Source: AP)