Scheffer:NATO supports Croatia's membership ambitions
NATO allies support Croatia's ambitions to join the alliance, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said after talks with Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader in Brussels on Monday.
(Hina)
NATO allies support Croatia's ambitions to join the alliance, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said after talks with Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader in Brussels on Monday.
At the talks with the NATO official, Sanader said that Croatia expected to be given a signal as to when it could be admitted at the next summit, to be held in Riga in November.
It is crystal clear that NATO allies support Croatia's ambitions. The door to NATO is open, NATO will help Croatia as much as it can in that process, which is based on individual achievements, Scheffer said.
"We expect a signal from NATO at the summit in Riga (28-29 November), although we know that enlargement will not be a topic of the summit, but Croatia has done a lot in meeting the membership criteria and I am certain that something will be stated," Sanader said.
Nothing is ruled out and nothing comes automatically, Scheffer answered when asked which signal Croatia could expect, apart from the message that the door to NATO is open.
"When we speak about NATO, I personally, my government and the Croatian legislature speak about values such as freedom, democracy, the rule of law, a free market economy, and human and minority rights," Sanader said, adding that this should be explained to the Croatian public and that he was confident that support for NATO would increase.
"I believe we can raise the level of support in the Croatian public for membership in NATO, but to do this we need the support of NATO members and several NATO countries have already expressed readiness to work with us so that we could send a clear message to Croatians about what NATO is," Sanader said.
Scheffer said that NATO was ready to help raise the support of Croatian citizens for NATO membership.
Croatia should increase allocations for defence from the current 1.8 percent of GDP to 2 percent, he said, pointing to the importance of economic and judicial reforms and the return of refugees.
(Hina)
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