Hlavní strana » English Pages » Notes for the Bucharest NATO…

Notes for the Bucharest NATO Summit

English Pages, 2. 4. 2008

Secretary General, Dear Colleagues,

- I would like to thank President Băsescu and all his colleagues and collaborators for the excellent preparation and organization of this summit which takes place − for the first time − in the rather complicated Balkan region. Without the previous NATO enlargement it would not have been possible, which brings me to the enlargement issue.

- As one of the newer NATO members, the Czech Republic is in favor of the continuation of an open door policy. We are in favor of a productive, realistic, but at the same time cautious process of enlargement of the Alliance.

- My country believes that in our today’s and tomorrow’s discussions we should agree with the plan to move ahead with the Membership Action Plan for Ukraine and Georgia and with the NATO membership of Albania, Croatia and one another country which − it seems to me − has no name.

- Speaking about the Balkan region, we are ready to continue our engagement in Kosovo but we see that there are conflicting views both about Kosovo’s chance to become a full-fledged state in the visible future and about the benefits of its formal recognition. The Czech Republic is still in the process of considering it. Regardless of that, we are convinced that the time has come to start a new era in our dealing with Serbia which should not remain in a position of a country which remains to be only criticized.

- Finally, I would like to mention the issue which has not yet been mentioned here. As you all know, the Czech Republic is approaching the end of its negotiations with the United States as regards the placement of one component of the Missile Defense system on its territory. We hope it will find support among our NATO partners. We will be pleased if this radar facility will become – sooner or later – part of a broader NATO missile defense project.

Václav Klaus, Bucharest, Romania, 2. 4. 2008