http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/04/julian_borger_in_bucharest.html
GUARDIAN BLOGS (UK) POLITICS BLOG Julian Borger A bad day for Bush in Bucharest April 3, 2008 2:03 PM The Nato summit is thus far going brilliantly for the Russians and the Greeks. Both have demonstrated their power to keep Nato expansion in check. Before Bucharest, British officials had said that Nato membership action plans (MAPs) for Georgia and Ukraine were a reasonable possibility and that a membership invitation for Macedonia, alongside Croatia and Albania, was almost in the bag. Greece's objections to Macedonia's name would be resolved. That is not the way it has worked out. France and Germany, nervous about Russian reaction, put off MAPs for the former Soviet republics and the Greeks shrugged off the contempt of every other Nato member and blackballed Macedonia. For those that believe that Nato membership provides a stable environment for the development of market economies and liberal democracies, this is a bad day for eastern fringes of "the west". It's a bad day for George Bush, in particular. He apparently threatened to veto Croatian and Albanian membership if a Macedonian deal could not be reached, in a desperate attempt to force the issue. It failed. I have just emerged from a Downing Street briefing inevitably portraying the summit so far, as highly satisfactory, if not an outright triumph. The spokesman pointed out that Nato had resolved that all three rejected countries would one day become members, but that was essentially the situation before the summit. He also said that all Macedonia had to do to join the club was to come to an agreement with Greece about its name, as if that had not been the problem all along. Greece's claim is that because Macedonia has the same name as its northern province, it implies a territorial claim. Other Nato members giggle when they talk about this, but Greece got the last laugh. __._,_.___
