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From OÖN, March 29, 2024, 5:11 a.m
Bild: (APA/AFP/KAREN MINASYAN)
“}”> NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg Image: (APA/AFP/KAREN MINASYAN)
WASHINGTON. Seven Eastern European countries joined the North Atlantic defense alliance 20 years ago on March 29th
When NATO suddenly grew by seven members 20 years ago, the world was still under the impression of 9/11 – the Islamist terrorist attacks in the USA on September 11, 2001. That’s why the then US President George W. Bush praised it the heads of government of the new countries – Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Slovakia and the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – especially for their commitment to the war on terror.
Bush did so at the White House on March 29, 2004, after the countries deposited their instruments of ratification at the U.S. State Department. As early as 2003, all of these countries had joined the “coalition of the willing” forged by Bush to support the controversial US interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq.
It was NATO’s largest round of enlargement. It immediately became clear that this upset Moscow. Russia, whose president was already Vladimir Putin, was particularly bothered by the fact that the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which had been involuntarily part of the Soviet Union until 1991, joined the Western alliance. The other new members – apart from Slovenia, which had been part of Yugoslavia during the Cold War – had belonged to the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact.
“}”> Image: OÖN graphics
Enthusiastic Balts and Romanians
Enthusiasm for NATO was greatest in the countries geographically closest to Russia: Romania and the Baltic states, with approval ratings of more than 80 percent. The trend has continued to this day. Anti-Russian sentiment had a long tradition in Romania. In addition, joining NATO was a question of national prestige: people had finally arrived in the Western world. The highlight was the construction of the US missile defense shield system in Deveselu in 2016.
Now Romania’s head of state Klaus Johannis is openly applying for the position of NATO Secretary General. It is unclear whether the Eastern Europeans will support him. In any case, the Dutchman Mark Rutte, the candidate for NATO leadership favored by the USA and Germany, among others, is not a preferred candidate in the East. Former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves recently complained that the West treats the countries of Eastern Europe with disdain, also with reference to candidate Rutte.
For the Balts, with a total of only around six million inhabitants, NATO membership, which has never been controversial, is seen as the most important security guarantee against their neighbor Russia. Without NATO, her country would be “one of those countries like Georgia or Moldova (…) that are currently in the gray zone. We don’t know (…) what will happen to them in the future,” the former recently explained Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, who led her country into the EU and NATO in 2004.
Measured by their economic output, the Balts spent the most on defense of the seven countries in 2023: Estonia 2.89 percent of GDP, Latvia 2.37 percent and Lithuania 2.75 percent.
The mood is completely different in Bulgaria, Slovenia and Slovakia. Bulgaria’s then Foreign Minister Solomon Passi had tears in his eyes when his country’s flag was hoisted at NATO headquarters for the first time in 2004. Not all Bulgarians shared these feelings, nor do they today. “I wouldn’t say there was ever any euphoria for NATO membership,” Gallup International Balkan Executive Director Parwan Simeonov said in Sofia. At the beginning of this year, trust in NATO was only 35 percent.
Skepticism in Slovakia and Bulgaria
In Slovakia, accession was controversial from the start. Surveys in advance did not show a certain majority in favor. However, the Russian war against Ukraine has increased sympathy for the alliance. The willingness to help Ukraine has so far varied on a rhetorical level in Sofia and Bratislava, depending on who was calling the shots politically. Bulgaria’s head of state Rumen Radev is considered Russia-friendly, as is the re-incumbent Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico.
The small ex-Yugoslav Adriatic country Slovenia defined joining NATO as an important goal when it declared its independence in 1991. However, in a 2003 referendum, only 66 percent of Slovenes voted for it. Today, according to surveys, this proportion is only 52 percent. Defense spending is only 1.33 percent of GDP.
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