*EPF507 05/17/2002
Congressional Report, May 17: NATO Enlargement
(Senate vote on NATO enlargement) (340)

SENATE VOTES OVERWHELMINGLY IN FAVOR OF NATO ENLARGEMENT

The U.S. Senate May 17 voted 85 to 6 in support of a measure supporting further enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and authorizing more than $55 million in foreign military aid for seven nations seeking entry into NATO.

The U.S. secretaries of state and defense had both written to members of Congress in support of HR 3167, noting that it would enhance the ability of the United States "to work with aspirant countries as they prepare to join with NATO and work ... to meet the 21st century's threats" to security.

The administration-backed authorization would divide up the $55.5 million in funding among the Central and East European countries of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania.

The money had already been appropriated in earlier action. The House passed the authorization on a 372 to 46 vote in November and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved it by voice vote in December.

Critics expressed concern that the measure is a blanket endorsement of those seven nations for NATO membership. Three other countries, Albania, Croatia and Macedonia, also are aspiring members in the next round of alliance enlargement.

Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden said the bill does not obviate the need to review the membership qualifications of candidate nations, nor does it necessarily indicate the intention of any member of Congress "to vote for or against the eventual admission of any candidate country or countries to NATO."

Senate action came just six months before 19 NATO members will gather in Prague in November to decide on issuing invitations to join the alliance to one or more aspiring countries. In the last round of NATO enlargement, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic were invited to join in 1997 and did so in 1999.

More information about U.S. policy on NATO enlargement may be found on the Web at http://www.usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/nato/

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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