LAZAR ELENOVSKI: We are in front of creating of the new strategic concept of NATO

Former Minister of Defense of Macedonia in an exclusive interview for Euro-Atlantic Quarterly: There are big challenges for the NATO in the future and it is very important to adapt politically and militarily to those challenges. The question is not only further military transformation but also a political reform and the way of reaching the political consensus...

At the NATO summit in Bucharest, Albania and Croatia were officially invited to start accession talks with the Alliance. However, an invitation of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia was blocked by Greece, because of the Macedonia naming dispute. In this interview, we questioned Mr. Lazar Elenovski, the former Minister of Defence in Macedonia, about the foreign policy and future perspectives of this country.

 

Mr. Elenovski, can we can we perceive some progress on Macedonian membership in NATO since last summit in Bucharest in April this year?

According to Mr. Elenovski there is a big debate in Macedonia about what steps should be done in process of joining international organizations but for the moment there is any suitable solution.
 

I think that whole Atlantic world knows that Macedonia didn’t get official invitation in Bucharest at the summit, although it was historic precedent, because for the first time one country fulfilled the basic criteria and didn’t get the invitation. Unfortunately, the reason for that was our dispute about the name with Greece, our southern neighbor. The invitation was not given, so it was little bit risky even for NATO, because NATO as a criteria-performance organization, it didn’t estate on its principles. The issue of the political process of the name is a long process in the framework of United Nations and it’s bilateral political issue. So it’s the first time that appeared that one country that fulfilled the criteria didn’t get the invitation. After the summit and maybe… for that we had the preelections, we had the parliamentary elections and after that the government was formed in August; so we have a government that just passed the first 100 days of its governing. And we have the new momentum in the meantime that according to the EU approach, in the last report of the European Commission, it was not given the date for the negotiations for membership for Macedonia. Macedonia is a candidate country for EU but we are still waiting for the date of negotiations. Of course, we continue to pay attention on the process in the United Nations with Greece on the negotiations for the name, but until now, we haven’t seen any progress towards finding some solutions. There is a big debate running in Macedonia, what to do and what should be our future steps. So it’s a big political debate and all political factors are included. Unfortunately, until now, we didn’t get to any solution.

As we all know, Republic of Macedonia is one of the most responsible countries in taking up its responsibilities in regard of the number of troops in NATO missions. Can you name some of the successes as well as failures of Macedonia’s foreign policy in last year?

Contribution to military operations is Macedonia's biggest success and Macedonia is permanently delivering its obligations to peacekeeping and military operations of the Alliance and of the European Union.

As I mentioned about our contribution to the regional and even wider global security Macedonia stays firm ally of the Alliance. In the regional sense we have always supported and many times leaded the regional processes and the regional initiatives, when we speak about the broader security and especially about our responsibility as an ally, I can tell you that Macedonia is permanently involved in four military operations - we are from the beginning in Iraq and Afghanistan, in Bosnia and also in Lebanon. If you compare Macedonia with the other countries, even with the allies of NATO, NATO member states, it is on the top of the list when speaking about the contribution, because Macedonia’s military forces are contributing with the 4 % of the land forces in the military operations which is very big percentage for every nation.

As I said, in general, because it’s the part of foreign policy of every country, contribution to military operations I can really underline, that this is our biggest success. We are the permanent contributor and we permanently deliver our obligations to our peacekeeping operations and military operations of the Alliance and of the European Union; I think that this is the pearl of our foreign policy. Of course, when we speak about the foreign aspects of the foreign policy, the last report of the European Commission that said, that we didn’t match all the benchmarks that were given by the EU to Macedonia were not reached, so we need to work in the close future very hard.

Mr. Elenovski, what do you personally expect from upcoming NATO summit in Strasbourg-Kehl? What are expectations of Republic of Macedonia?

Mr. Elenovski thinks that the international situtation is rapidly changing and so NATO should reflect this development.
 

I am expecting that the new, 60 years jubilee summit of NATO will be also historic one. We are in front of creating of the new strategic concept of NATO, this is something that NATO necessarily needs. We see that situations are changing very rapidly, especially our challenges as the Alliance towards to the East, when we speak about the relations with the Near East, with Russia, Ukraine and Georgia, or if we speak about the further East operation in Afghanistan, about the terrorism and of course about other countries such as China and other global partners. So there are big challenges to the NATO in the future and we think that it is very important to adapt politically and militarily to those challenges. So I will push for the new strategic concept for the further transformation of the military structure, but also what is very important if you want to see the reality is that, that NATO has changed very much. 15 years ago it was an organization with 15 countries, which have been very similar. Today, NATO is an Association with almost 30 countries that are very different and with very different historic, cultural and geopolitical interests and concepts. So I think, that the question, which the strategic concept should answer, is also a political reform, and how the principles that were stated when NATO was formed in 1949, and the way of reaching the political consensus and the political principles of how NATO is working should be reformed as well.

Transcript by Simona Kordošová (Slovak Atlantic Commission)