NEW YORK — Later this month, seven nations will clear a crucial hurdle toward full membership in NATO.
But as they embrace a military alliance that seemed unimaginable during the Soviet era, these nations — Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia — will remain under close scrutiny to ensure they follow through on promises regarding “value issues,” including how they handle Jewish affairs.
Jewish leaders are divided on how the nations will behave after they are formally invited to join the military alliance during the Prague Summit on Nov. 21.
NATO demands that candidate countries establish high standards in treating their ethnic and religious minorities.
NATO membership is not a foregone conclusion for the seven aspirant nations. Though invitations will be extended in Prague, nothing will be final for another 18 months.
During the past decade, Jewish leaders and the U.S. State Department have used NATO membership as leverage to encourage the aspirants to confront their Holocaust history. That includes politically sensitive issues like local collaboration with the Nazis, property restitution, Holocaust education and commemoration and the prosecution of war criminals.
“There will be a greater effort to keep these countries” moving on such issues “than ever in the past,” said Bruce Jackson, executive director of the U.S. Committee on NATO, a nonprofit group that tracks value issues among aspirant nations.
“The pressure to make good on reforms will be pronounced,” he said. “They’re young, fragile democracies, and there’s a feeling we have to encourage them to continue the reforms they have promised.”
Jackson regards the handling of the 1999 NATO entrants — the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary — as a mistake. World leaders failed to anticipate a slowdown in reforms after the three joined NATO, he says.
In Hungary in particular, he said, leaders were surprised when politicians there reverted to nationalist themes in elections and tolerated anti-Semitic remarks by far-right leaders.
“We have seen some very real progress. There is no doubt things are happening because of the run-up to the Prague Summit,” said Rabbi Andrew Baker, international director of the American Jewish Committee. “But without question, the full attention of these countries might not be with us after Prague.”
Eastern European leaders acknowledge the importance of Jewish issues, but decisions are largely unpopular with local populations, most of whom — due to Soviet propaganda — were never educated about their nations’ Holocaust history.
Jewish officials consider the Baltic states absolute failures when it comes to the prosecution of local war criminals, not one of whom has served jail time since the post-Communist nations regained independence in 1991.