Croatia Is NATO Frontrunner as Expansion Entry Talks Resume

TIRANA, Sep. 17 – While Albania is working diligently to complete military reforms ahead of the Bucharest NATO summit in which it hopes to become a member, there are reports in the international media that it lags behind the two other contenders, Croatia and Macedonia, with which it has also signed the Adriatic 3 Charter under Washington’s patronage.
Bloomberg News reported Monday that Croatia was the frontrunner for NATO membership.
U.S. President George W. Bush’s endorsement makes Croatia virtually certain to be offered membership next year, according to unnamed alliance officials.
The officials describe the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia as a borderline case, and say Albania is less likely to receive NATO membership this year.
Doubts also persist over Albania’s political stability, and it ranks even lower on the transparency corruption scale, tying with Kazakhstan and Laos for 111th place.
However, Albania’s NATO ambitions got a boost in June when Bush became the first sitting American president to visit and expressed a “deep desire” for the country of 3.6 million to join the alliance. Less noticed in Tirana was that Bush didn’t offer the 2008 date he pledged to Croatia, saying that Albania will enter “someday.”
Backers of a three-nation expansion of NATO say it would enhance stability and security at a time when Russia’s veto of independence for the Serbian province of Kosova threatens to spark unrest in the Balkans.
Critics, however, say it would dilute the alliance.
Part of the geopolitical contest is playing out in southeast Europe, with Russia using its alliance with Serbia as a toehold to counter growing western influence. Serbia itself, the target of NATO bombs in 1999, is wrestling with whether to strive to join the now 26-nation alliance.
Officials from Croatia and Macedonia present their final readiness plans to NATO this week, and Albania will follow on September 25. Alliance leaders will issue entry tickets at a summit in Bucharest, Romania, next April.
Croatia is considered the best prepared nation to join NATO. Expanding beyond Croatia in 2008 might mire NATO in the ethnic and religious hatreds of the former Yugoslavia and exacerbate strains with Russia. Putin is blocking a Balkan territorial settlement by vetoing independence for Kosova, a largely ethnic-Albanian province of 2 million under international control since NATO’s 1999 air war drove out the Serbian army.
Technically part of Serbia, Kosova is run by a European diplomat under a United Nations mandate and policed by 16,000 NATO troops. Serb and Kosova leaders resume talks in late September to try to sort out the status question, with both sides warning that an unsatisfactory outcome might lead to violence.
A 25 percent ethnic-Albanian minority in a population of 2 million gives Macedonia a stake in preventing tensions in Kosova, its northern neighbor.
Macedonia’s key test is proving its democratic institutions are strong enough to preserve the rights of the Albanian minority. It also has to root out a culture of political graft: Macedonia ranked 105th on Transparency International’s 2006 scale of corruption, tied with the likes of Iran and Uganda.