Ajar doors

The NATO Council at the level of foreign ministers did not provide Ukraine and Georgia with a Membership Action Plan (MAP). At the same time, the Council decided to resume contacts with Russia, frozen after the war in Georgia. Russia's Permanent Representative to NATO Dmitry Rogozin told Interfax that an informal meeting of the Russia-NATO Council at the ambassadorial level could take place as early as this month.

Meanwhile, despite the failure to provide a membership plan, the promise “eventually” to admit Ukraine and Georgia, “if they themselves want it and meet all the criteria,” remains in force. This pledge was formulated by the alliance at the April summit in Bucharest. In addition, NATO decided to “continue to assist Ukraine and Georgia in carrying out the reforms” necessary to meet the criteria of the alliance, within the framework of the NATO-Ukraine and NATO-Georgia commissions. NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer promised that the activities of the alliance's information centers in Kyiv and Tbilisi will be significantly expanded. However, he acknowledged that despite the progress demonstrated by the two applicant states, they still have significant work to do to achieve the standards required to join NATO.

But in general, the provision of a MAP to Ukraine and Georgia has not been decisively refused. According to Scheffer, "this feature may be implemented in the future." Meanwhile, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vladimir Ohryzko has already spoken out in the sense that a path to NATO is possible without the MAP.

Nevertheless, Rogozin believes that at this stage, relations with Russia are more important for NATO than the membership of Ukraine and Georgia. According to him, the alliance “thinks that Ukraine and Georgia will not escape them, and issues with Russia must be resolved now.” He explains the advances to these two countries by the fact that NATO cannot show that it has yielded under pressure from Moscow, “so they will make some good statements, make promises to Ukraine and Georgia, perhaps outline their Atlantic future, but there will be no radical decisions.” will". Rogozin is confident that “the prospect of Ukraine and Georgia joining NATO does not please anyone in the alliance.”