France Likely to Raise a Fuss at NATO Summit

When President Clinton and other NATO leaders gather Tuesday in Madrid to decide on expanding the Atlantic alliance eastward, expect the French to sound a loud, discordant note.

Officials in Paris, like some other Europeans, are unhappy about what they view as an American decree that the first wave of new countries admitted to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization be limited to three: Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic.

“This is a diktat,” said Marie-Claude Smouts, professor at the Institute of Political Sciences in Paris and a French specialist on international organizations. “There is also an attitude of late among the Americans that is not appreciated at all by the French, a sort of arrogance.”

Madrid was also supposed to be the glittering venue where France would announce that it was fully rejoining NATO’s military structure. Gen. Charles de Gaulle, always prickly about French independence and grandeur, pulled French forces out from under NATO’s command umbrella in 1966.

In December 1995, President Jacques Chirac announced his intention to lead his country’s forces back into NATO. But talks with the United States about reforms in NATO have not satisfied the French yet.

In particular, they demanded a change in NATO’s Southern Command in Naples, Italy, now headed by an American, to give more responsibilities to Europeans as part of a realignment of duties.

Last Friday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Jacques Rummelhardt voiced the position of France’s new Socialist-led government, with which Chirac, a conservative, now must share power. Rummelhardt said there had not been enough changes agreed to in NATO to warrant a full-fledged French return.

The disagreement over NATO’s future size and structure comes at a time when many in France believe that Washington has grown too haughty as the world’s sole superpower.

American gloating at the recent Denver economic summit over the U.S. economy also drew barbs in European media. For some newspapers and broadcast reports, it was highly symbolic that Chirac and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl declined to don the cowboy hats that Clinton presented visiting leaders.

To head off a divisive debate at the very moment when NATO is prepared to grow, Secretary-General Javier Solana began meeting with ambassadors of the 16 member countries in Brussels on Monday to try to forge a consensus.

NATO decisions must be unanimous, though the U.S. wields unparalleled weight as the most powerful member. So far, though, nine NATO countries--France, Italy, Canada, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, Greece, Belgium and Luxembourg--have endorsed, with differing enthusiasm, the candidacies of two other former East Bloc nations, Romania and Slovenia.

Even Germany’s staunchly pro-U.S. government has hinted that the Clinton administration could have handled its European allies better. Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel said last weekend that it would “probably” have been more apt for Washington to have been less categorical in its insistence that only the three countries be admitted.

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Though some Europeans may fuss over the administration’s stance, experts don’t expect the United States to back down in Madrid. France will probably attempt a “last-ditch battle” on Romania’s behalf, but the effort will probably come to naught, Smouts said. The longer-term damage, she said, will be to the endeavor to transform NATO into a post-Cold War alliance where the French and other Europeans have more power and responsibilities.

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Expanding NATO

The United States is leading the effort to allow Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. France and other European powers in the alliance would like to extend membership to Romania and Slovenia as well, a move the United States opposes. The disagreement comes at a time when many in France believe that Washington has grown too haughty as the world’s sole superpower.

NATO membership

Belgium

Britain

Canada

Denmark

France

Germany

Greece

Iceland

Italy

Luxembourg

Netherlands

Norway

Portugal

Spain

Turkey

United States