N. Macedonia becomes NATO’s 30th member

BRUSSELS — North Macedonia on Friday officially became the 30th member of the NATO military alliance.

“North Macedonia is now part of the NATO family, a family of 30 nations and almost 1 billion people. A family based on the certainty that, no matter what challenges we face, we are all stronger and safer together,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement.

North Macedonia’s flag will be raised alongside those of the other 29 member countries at NATO headquarters in Brussels and two other commands simultaneously on Monday.

Given the impact of the coronavirus around the world, Macedonian President Stevo Pendarovski said “we cannot rejoice and mark the event as it should (be marked)… But, this is a historic success that after three decades of independence, finally confirms Macedonian security and guarantees our future. Congratulations to all of you! We deserve it!”

Trump says “Germany is a captive to Russia.

newrepublic.com - Trump says “Germany is a captive to Russia.”

In a Wednesday meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Trumpshocked the room by complaining that “Germany is totally controlled by Russia.” The focus of the president’s ire was Germany’s reliance on Russia for roughly a third of its natural gas. “How can you be together when a country is getting its energy from the person you want protection against or from the group that you want protection against?” Trump asked.

Although Trump’s attack took onlookers aback, it follows a familiar pattern. Under fire for alleged collusion with the Russian government, Trump responds by complaining about others who have Russia ties. It’s a reprise of the famous exchange he had with Hillary Clinton in 2016, where he turned around the idea of being “Putin’s puppet” by saying, “No puppet. No puppet. You’re the puppet.”

The remarks are also of a piece with Trump’s habit of attacking American allies, as he did both before and after the G-7 summit. While it’s true that German reliance on Russian natural gas is a longstanding concern, Trump’s deployment of the issue in a public forum to berate Germany seems opportunistic.

Further, as Atlantic columnist David Frum points out, Trump misunderstands the actual American objections to a pipeline between Germany and Russia.

Trump says US committed to NATO's mutual defense pledge

Washington (AFP) - US President Donald Trump said Friday that the United States remained committed to NATO's mutual defense pledge, after he failed to endorse it in a speech in Brussels last month.

Amid worries by Washington's European partners that the US leader had not fully bought into the Atlantic alliance, Trump told reporters: "I'm committing the United States to Article Five. Certainly we are there to protect."

"That's one of the reasons that I want people to make sure we have a very, very strong force, by paying the kinds of money necessary to have that force," Trump told a joint press conference with visiting Romanian President Klaus Iohannis.

The US president stunned Europe's leaders at a summit in Brussels on May 25 when he failed to publicly back the now 29-member bloc's founding mutual defense guarantee.

Instead he castigated the allies for failing to pay their way with contributions to NATO forces, singling out especially Germany.

According to Politico, Trump's defense and security advisors included in his prepared speech a clear endorsement of the mutual defense pledge, but Trump himself struck it out just before speaking.

Doubts have remained since then, despite US diplomats and military leaders themselves restating the pledge.

- Trump to visit Poland -

Just days before his January 20 inauguration, Trump rocked the post-World War II western alliance by calling NATO "obsolete."

Article Five has been the core of the NATO treaty's strength since it was formed amid a budding Cold War with communist states -- particularly the Soviet Union -- in 1949.

It has only been invoked once -- in support of the United States, after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

On Thursday, Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee had called on Trump to declare his support for Article Five.

Trump's pledge on Friday came shortly before the White House announced that he would travel to NATO ally Poland ahead of the Group of 20 summit in early July.

"The visit will reaffirm America's steadfast commitment to one of our closest European allies and emphasize the administration's priority of strengthening NATO's collective defense," the White House said. (ontinueReading

Merkel: Europe can no longer rely on US and Britain

dw,com - The German chancellor's comments came after contentious meetings with US President Donald Trump at NATO and G7 summit meetings. Trump clashed with America's allies over global warming, mutual defense and trade.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Sunday that Europe has to forge its own path forward, as the United States and Britain were no longer reliable partners.

"The times when we could fully rely on others have passed us by a little bit, that's what I've experienced in recent days," she said while speaking at a campaign rally in Munich.

Her reference was to the contentious G7 Summit meeting in Sicily, which ended Saturday with the world's democratic powers divided. Most notably they were split "six against one," as Merkel described it Saturday, on the man-made threat posed by global warming.

Even though Britain agreed with its European allies on the need to combat climate change, its decision to leave the European Union means it, too, will be going its own way on a range of issues.

US President Donald Trump, who campaigned as a global-warming denier - calling it a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese - refused to go along with his six counterparts in reaffirming their support for the 2015 Paris Agreement, which aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions in order to limit the rise in global temperatures.

"For that reason," Merkel continued, "I can only say: We Europeans really have to take our fates in our own hands."

Of course, that must be done in a spirit of friendship with the United States and Britain, she said, "But we have to wage our own fight for our future, as Europeans, for our fate." (ontinueReading

Serbia FM: "Serbia doesn't want to join NATO, or any other alliance"

B96.net - Ivica Dacic on Tuesday organized a reception for a delegation of the National Defense College of Nigeria.

The delegation is on a geo-strategic world study tour.

Addressing the gathering, the Serbian foreign minister said that "relations with Africa occupy a very important place in the context of Serbia's foreign policy priorities - Serbia, as one of the main successor states of the former Yugoslavia, is trying to achieve a strategic partnership and cooperation with African countries."

According to the Serbian government, Dacic said that Serbia highly appreciates the position of Nigeria regarding the non-recognition of “Kosovo," and underlined and expressed his hope that Nigeria will continue to support Serbia’s positions on Kosovo and Metohija, especially in terms of “Kosovo” efforts towards membership in international organizations, primarily in UNESCO.

One of the strategic goals of Serbia, Dacic added, is full membership in the EU and in this regard we support the European aspirations of our neighbors, and we believe that the European process is the best way to overcome issues of the past and that the whole region becomes a member of the European family of nations and peoples.

In military-security terms, Serbia is committed to a policy of military neutrality and has no aspirations to become a member of NATO or any other military organization in the world, he concluded. (ontinueReading

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Related: Serbia wants "intensified high-level dialogue" with US

Nato to welcome Former Yugoslav Republic of Montenegro to the defence alliance in first expansion of membership in eight years

Independent.co.uk - The tiny Balkan country of Montenegro will take a huge step towards integrating with the West when it becomes the 29th member of Nato this week, but it risks paying a heavy price for spurning Russia.

For nearly a decade after Montenegro split from Serbia in 2006, Moscow cultivated close ties with the former Yugoslav republic, and money poured in from Russian investors and tourists. It was a love affair underpinned not just by commercial and diplomatic logic but also by historic, religious and linguistic ties between the two Slav countries.

"Back in 2006 Montenegro was advertised as a desirable destination for Russians, because it is a beautiful country and an Orthodox Christian one," says Vadim Verhovski, a Russian investment banker who, with partners, has invested €25m (£21.6m) to buy land near the coastal town of Budva.

Now the romance has turned to rancour. Montenegro blamed Russia for an alleged plot to assassinate its prime minister last October which officials said was aimed at blocking its entry to Nato. The Kremlin called that absurd.

In April, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned of a "surge of anti-Russian hysteria" in Montenegro.

The chill is hitting tourism: latest available data, for March, showed Russians accounted for 7.3 per cent of all tourist overnight stays that month compared to nearly 30 per cent in March 2014 and 19 per cent in March 2016. Advertising hoardings in Russian, promoting luxury apartments with views of the Adriatic, were once ubiquitous along the coastal highway. Now they have vanished, and Russian-language signs have largely disappeared from shops.

Prime Minister Dusko Markovic said a recent Russian ban on imports of wine from Montenegro was linked to its Nato membership. Moscow said it had discovered banned pesticides in the wine.

"We are prepared for any decision [by Russia] and nothing is going to deter us from the path we decided to take," Markovic told reporters. "The Balkans for centuries has been the scene of a struggle between the West and the East. Like other states in the region, Montenegro has strong links with the East, but in the 2006 we made a key decision that we would like to adopt Western standards and values."

For a country of just 650,000 people with 2,000 military personnel and an area smaller than Connecticut, Montenegro has strategic value out of proportion to its size. Its dramatic Adriatic coastline, the source of its appeal to tourists, is also attractive in strategic terms because of its easy access to the Mediterranean. A former senior government official, who declined to be named, said Moscow made an official request in September 2013 to use the Montenegrin port of Bar as a naval logistics base en route to Syria. After pressure from Nato, the government declined.

"The strategic position of our country is important [to Nato] and especially the Adriatic Sea," Markovic said.

When the alliance welcomes Montenegro at its summit in Brussels on Wednesday and Thursday, it will mark its first expansion since neighbours Albania and Croatia joined in 2009. The country is surrounded by Nato members or hopefuls, except for Serbia, which maintains military neutrality.

"Montenegro may be small, but its presence at the Nato summit as a new member is a message to the Western Balkans to show that the path towards Europe is open," a senior Nato official said. "It is also a message to Donald Trump that Nato is growing, it has new friends."

Still, Nato is a divisive issue among Montenegro's own people. Many see Russia as a historic friend – a traditional ally against the Ottoman Empire, and the first nation to establish diplomatic relations with Montenegro in 1711.

Many remember a 1999 Nato bombing raid that killed 10 people in Montenegro, part of a wider intervention by the alliance to end Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic's campaign of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. (ontinueReading

Czech President Calls for Referendum on EU, NATO Membership

(Bloomberg) Czech President Milos Zeman called for a referendum on the country’s membership in the European Union and NATO, adding to concern that more European countries will copy Britain’s Brexit vote even as he said he supported remaining in both blocs.

The Czech Republic benefits as an EU member because it receives more funds than it contributes, while NATO provides security guarantees in fighting international terrorism, Zeman said on public Czech Radio on Friday. Still, he said he would do everything in his power to initiate a referendum “so people can express themselves.” The government rejected the president’s suggestion.

“I disagree with those who support leaving the EU,” Zeman said. “But I’ll do everything I can to make a referendum happen.”

Often at odds with official government policy, the president has angered EU leaders by openly criticizing the bloc’s economic sanctions against Russia. He has publicly supported Vladimir Putin, strengthened Czech ties with China and derided the bloc’s leadership as “totally incompetent.” He has also alienated many European allies with his hard-line stance against refugees, whom he has repeatedly and publicly linked to terrorism.

Because Zeman’s role is largely ceremonial, and he has no power to call a referendum, he is commenting only to shape public opinion, according to Jan Outly, a political scientist at the Metropolitan University in Prague. The country doesn’t have a law allowing such a ballot, so any attempt to hold one would be a long process, he said.

“This is just one of many public announcements Mr. Zeman makes to make himself visible in the media,” Outly said by phone. “He has absolutely no authority to make it happen.”

Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka’s administration considers membership in the EU and and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization guarantees of stability and security, according to a statement that it e-mailed after Zeman’s comments.

“The government isn’t considering taking any steps that could in any way question our memberships and the long-term direction of the Czech Republic’s foreign policy, and therefore it doesn’t expect any referendums,” the government said. (FullStory)

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Related (Reuters) Czech government rejects president's call for referendum on EU, NATO