GREECE:Ahead of Nato's summit in Romania, several applicant countries face opposition, writes Daniel McLaughlin
ON THE eve of Nato's summit in Romania, Macedonia is still unsure whether Greece will veto its invitation to join the bloc, and Russia is launching a final offensive to persuade the alliance not to admit its former Soviet subjects, Ukraine and Georgia.
Only Croatia and Albania seem certain to be asked to join Nato at the summit that starts tomorrow, despite the latter suffering a setback this month when at least 21 people died after ageing explosives blew up at an arms dump.
The poor Balkan state was soon awash with rumours that the massive blast - which involved munitions that Nato wanted destroyed years ago - was an act of sabotage by agents from a hostile country intent on scuppering its bid to join Nato.
Neighbouring Macedonia's push to receive a membership action plan - which formally lays out what a country must do to become a Nato member - may be blocked by neighbouring Greece over a 17-year-old row about the state's very name.
Athens wants Macedonia to change its name from that also used by a northern Greek province, the birthplace of Alexander the Great. Greece claims that use of the monicker suggests the former Yugoslav republic covets both the territory of Greek Macedonia and the glory attached to its most famous son.
Parliament in the capital, Skopje, cancelled a debate yesterday on a suggestion by a UN envoy that the country adopt the name "Republic of Macedonia (Skopje)", after Greek officials suggested they did not like the proposal and still intended to veto plans by Nato's other 25 member states to ask Macedonia to join the bloc.
This row has rumbled since Macedonia broke from Yugoslavia in 1991, and quickly angered Athens by adopting a flag that featured the Vergina Sun, symbol of the ancient kings of northern Greece.
Macedonia changed the flag after Greece imposed a trade embargo, but the spat did not prevent Skopje naming its airport after Alexander the Great, further enraging Greeks who note that the Slavs, who predominate in Macedonia, arrived in the region some 900 years after Alexander's rule.
The row has inflamed nationalist elements in both countries, increasing a sense of unease across a region that was put on edge by Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia six weeks ago.
Macedonia is eager for Nato membership to help strengthen its own stability, having stumbled in 2001 to the brink of war between mostly Slav government forces and guerrillas fighting for more rights for the country's 25 per cent ethnic Albanian minority.
Along with Albania and Croatia, Macedonia also insists it has contributed enough to Nato missions to earn membership: all three have sent contingents to Afghanistan and their personnel have served with Nato troops in other trouble spots around the world.
While Greece is the only Nato member to oppose membership for any of the Balkan trio - and only until the name dispute is settled - hopes in Ukraine and Georgia that they would be asked to join at this summit have been dampened by France and Germany.
"A country should become a Nato member not only when its temporary political leadership is in favour but when a significant percentage of the population supports membership," German chancellor Angela Merkel said this month, alluding to strong suspicion of Nato in mostly Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine.
"Countries that are themselves entangled in regional conflicts, can, in my opinion, not become members," she added, in apparent reference to the independence ambitions of two separatist provinces of Georgia.
As US president George Bush was flying to Ukraine yesterday, hundreds of Ukrainians marched through Kiev to oppose Nato membership, and about 5,000 people did the same at the weekend in the pro-Russian Crimea region.
While this trip is seen by many as a "legacy-building" project for Bush, Russian president Vladimir Putin is less than two months away from leaving office, and would not relish stepping down after seeing two more of Moscow's former subjects step boldly towards Nato.
"The very fact the president is going to Bucharest . . . demonstrates Russia's constructive mood, its desire to continue dialogue," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. "This willingness includes an expectation that our partners, too, will listen to Russia's opinion."
As Ukraine and Georgia urged western powers not to appease a resurgent Moscow by denying them a place in Nato, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov lashed out at how the two states were being "shamelessly dragged into Nato." "This cannot but have consequences, first of all in geopolitics but also economically," he warned, in words ominous to European countries that rely heavily on Russian energy.