By Nenad Radicevic

Hoisting of Croatian and Albanian flags in front of NATO headquarters in Brussels has made many experts and journalists wonder what will Serbia, a country soon to be surrounded by the Alliance`s members, win or loose by avoiding NATO association. Minister of Defence Dragan Sutanovac has recently complained that Serbia of all countries in South Eastern Europe has the worst relations with the North Atlantic Alliance. But despite the Ministers` note that NATO`s victims cannot be condoned although cooperation with the Alliance is required, political elite in Serbia still fears of starting the argumentative debate on imperfections and benefits of Euro-Atlantic integrations.

NATO association opponents stress that, apart from NATO bombing in 1999, this military alliance is not popular in Serbia. But those who underline this argument seem to neglect the fact that Alliance has no passionate supporters not even in NATO member countries, as well as the fact that two third of Croatian citizen were against that membership just a year ago.

According to Strategic Market Agency`s research, which was made public in "Stanje nacije" (The state of nation) TV show, 47.61 percent believes that Serbia should stand against NATO membership, 29.32 approves joining in NATO, while 23.07 percent has no attitude on that issue.

The unpopularity of NATO in Serbia is more than understandable, yet it is not the only argument against Euro-Atlantic integrations. Experts underline that one of these arguments refer to the increased exposure to new transnational and asymmetric threats such as the terrorist actions performed by Islamic fundamentalists, although the chance for the direct and conventional ways of attacking by another state is minimised.

Some politicians think that the approach to NATO might endanger Serbia`s political and economic relations with Russia, although the official Moscow antagonises the Alliances` enlargement toward Georgia and Ukraine only.

After the proclamation of independence and its recognition by the majority in NATO, Kosovo status may also become an obstacle on Serbia`s way to the military alliance membership. Among EU members, Cyprus has decided not to join NATO due to the territorial disputes, and that is why several experts believe that in our case, Albania might be the one to try stopping Serbia`s desire to become NATO member due to Kosovo issue.

But this membership brings numerous benefits as well. Not only that it implies the system of collective defence policy in case when the aggression directed toward just one single NATO member is treated as the attack aimed on the entire Alliance, but it also concerns political, economic, diplomatic and military credibility. Only after the invitation to join NATO did Croatia manage to improve its credit rating, while the direct foreign investments in Romania have increased for 141 percent as soon as this country has approached the Alliance.

Since the decisions accepted by NATO leaders directly affect regional, European and global security, irrespective of Serbia`s membership, the absence at the decision spot disables even the slightest possibility of creating foreign policy or security trends by our diplomats, or the attempts to affect these processes in any way. Besides, Euro-Atlantic integrations imply the usage of funds necessary for the expensive military forces` reform process and army technique renewal. Croatian Ministry of Defence has calculated in 2007 that the refusal of joining NATO is incredibly expensive, and according to that calculation the NATO membership costs three billion dollars less than the remaining outside the Alliance. The military neutrality status, to which Serbia still refers to, costs even more, and the leading military commentators begin to criticise it as the illusional policy.

While Serbia designated ten years of NATO bombing campaign last month, stressing that it still remains unfamiliar what kind of cooperation with the Alliance does Serbia need now; Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary have celebrated ten years of NATO accession. With their glasses filled with champagne, the Ambassadors from these three countries have proudly announced that this membership has given them not only the guarantees regarding security, but also industrial and social usefulness as well as the transformation to democratic societies.

Jan Vlkovsky, a diplomat of the political department of the Czech Embassy in Belgrade, has recently explained for Fonet News Agency that "NATO membership implies the secure area convenient for foreign investments," and that there are "numerous benefits regarding military forces, alike the access to information, new technologies, NATO common budget which can be used for infrastructure modernisation."

Even though Czech embassy was named NATO contact embassy in Serbia, Czech diplomats never miss an opportunity to stress that Serbia should decide whether to join NATO or not, and their intention is not to suggest the same pattern. However, Vlkovsky underlines that the whole series of reforms that Czech Republic implemented in order to reach NATO membership, was later used for EU accession.

"After four decades of communist dictatorship our ambition was to access every international organisation, in which we would have been if we weren`t under that dictatorship. It was seen as our return to Europe. But if you ask me what organisation was of higher importance for us, NATO or EU - it would certainly be NATO," Vlkovsky explained.

Serbia could access EU in theory, and choose to remain beyond NATO, just like some other countries alike Ireland, Austria, Finland, Malta and Cyprus have done, although these countries share certain specialities which are not comparable to Serbia. But even military troupes from these countries sometimes participate in peace operation within NATO.

Although Serbia`s Army is considered to be the most professional and well trained in the region, as the American Strategic Forecasting Agency Stratfor`s research demonstrates so, the political elite has not decided yet what is the nature of relations and long term strategy that Serbia wants to establish with NATO.

Slovenia, on the other hand, designates five years of NATO accession, which Dr Milan Jazbec, a member of IFIMES International Institute, assesses as "handful of useful experiences," which may be of great significance for other Balkan countries.

He also stresses that the fact that Euro-Atlantic integrations were considered as the governmental project made this issue important for Slovenia, not an ambition demonstrated only by the Slovenian Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Ministry Defence and the Army. It seems that Serbia lacks that, whether our country seeks for NATO membership or another kind of relation with the North Atlantic Alliance.