NAVO-top start onder hevig protest (en)
EUOBSERVER / STRASBOURG – European, US and Canadian leaders were set to meet on Friday for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's 60th anniversary summit in Strasbourg. Meanwhile, police have already arrested some one hundred protesters after violent clashes, highlighting the identity and image problems of the military alliance.
If it wasn't for the delays to the city's high-tech tram system, the clashes between anti-NATO protesters and riot police in a southern suburb of the city would have passed completely unnoticed, as city residents lay on the grass in the sunny April afternoon in the center of Strasbourg, or sipped cappuccinos on crowded terraces.
"Due to demonstrations, the tram service is experiencing delays. We are sorry for the inconvenience," monitors in the tram stations said.
Equipped with stones and metal bars, the anti-NATO activists left their camp in the suburb of Neuhof near the German border and tried to 'conquer the center,' only to be dispersed by the police.
Some one hundred protesters were arrested after they smashed bus shelters and set trash cans on fire, clashing with about 40 riot police who fired rubber bullets and tear gas.
An authorised demonstration of several thousand is set to take place in the eastern part of the city on Friday afternoon, close to the Rhine in an industrial area that is completely deserted. "Democracy lives when the actions of protesters can take place in the city. The demonstration aims at showing a large public that NATO is a military war machine," Reiner Braun, from the international anti-NATO co-ordination group, told EUobserver.
Members of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) group in the European Parliament were also set to take part in the protests on Friday, including Francis Wurtz i, the chairman of the group, as well as two other German MEPs.
NATO with one foot in the grave?
While the protesters were chastising NATO's current military operations in Afghanistan, the alliance's policy makers and 'young Atlanticists' were debating the future of the organisation at a "NATO in 2020" forum.
Jamie Shea, director of NATO's policy planning unit, argued that the organisation at 60 did not have "one foot in the grave," as can be the case with some people reaching an advanced age.
However, he conceded that while NATO was very good at guaranteeing the security of its members during the Cold War, when there were no military clashes, things are much more complicated since NATO got involved in actual military operations.
With NATO no longer an anti-Soviet military alliance, the institution is evolving into a body which should tackle new threats, such as terrorism, cyber attacks, energy security or even the security impacts of climate change and the financial crisis. The question is whether NATO should limit itself to what it does best – military operations – or go further.
The change in the geopolitical environment has been augmented by a generational change. Giuseppe Belardetti, an Italian chairing the Youth Atlantic Treaty Association, said that his generation, which was now in its mid-twenties, is no longer worried about a Soviet threat, but rather the threat of "eastern workers."
Enlargement not off the table
Proof that NATO is not a dying institution lies in the fact that it is still attracting countries, such as Albania and Croatia, which acquired full membership on 1 April, expanding the alliance to 28 members, Mr Shea argued.
NATO's enlargement to eastern Europe, hand-in-hand with EU enlargement, contributed to the democratisation and reform of these countries and should continue to do so, he said.
A young Ukrainian student however asked if it was up to the countries themselves to fulfill membership criteria or whether there was a question of "international solidarity" in helping her country to join.
She spoke of the disillusionment in her country after Germany opposed granting Ukraine a so-called membership action plan last year - the official preparatory stage before a country actually joins the alliance.
NATO allies are set to re-affirm what they had promised Georgia and Ukraine last year in Bucharest, that the two countries would join the alliance once they meet the criteria, Mr Shea said.
"There will be no backtracking on the promise made in Bucharest," he stressed.