EU-DIGEST

Georgia, Ukraine Told They Do Not Meet Standards For NATO Membership - by Liz Fuller

The NATO foreign ministers' decision on December 2 not to offer Membership Action Plans to Georgia and Ukraine should not have surprised anyone. Nor should their reaffirmation of the provision enshrined in the final document of the April 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest that those two countries will at some unspecified future date join the alliance. But the fact remains -- and was stressed by both NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice -- that both Georgia and Ukraine still fall short of basic NATO standards in terms of both political reform and military readiness.

Note EU-Digest:
There also is absolutely no need to admit Albania and Croatia into NATO. As a matter of fact the EU should also insist for reasons of unity and conformity that those EU nations which already are in NATO should be grouped under a single EU unbrella possibly as proposed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy re: EU Elite Defence Force.

Labels: Albania, Croatia, EU, Georgia, Nato, Ukraine

EU Eases Visa Requirements on 3 Balkan Countries

The European Union signed on Friday an agreement with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania and Montenegro on visa facilitation, making it easier for the citizens of the three western Balkan countries to acquire EU visas.

Macedonia, which has completed talks, and Serbia, who is in the final stages of negotiation, are expected to sign similar agreements in the near future.

Labels: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, EU, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Visa Requirements