A senior official from Germany’s ministry of defense was in Tbilisi on Tuesday, meeting counterparts and doing the things that senior defense officials do, including a reception put on by the German embassy. According to one person present at the reception, during his brief remarks he said the Georgia was likely to be a NATO member this year, at which point (by the same account) the ambassador’s jaw dropped for a moment. Then professional training set in, and her poker face returned.
If this account is accurate, and his remarks are on message, it would be a significant change in the German position. It may be walked back — the German ambassador to NATO was quoted in yesterday’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung saying that no member expected Georgian membership soon — but the April summit in Strasbourg and Kehl could have some surprises.
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Feed: A Fistful of Euros
January 15th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Hahah, that is interesting. Do you have a link to the story, though?
By the way, links to this post from the front page and from the syndication feed are broken; they say http://fistfulofeuros.net//noted-with-interest-2/ instead of http://fistfulofeuros.net/afoe/noted-with-interest-2/ .
January 16th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Hi, Aidan. The link to the post has been fixed.
January 16th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
PS: Doug, I hope you don’t mind that I fixed the link.
January 23rd, 2009 at 10:06 am
This is false information.
I know from very good sources that membership of Georgia is not on the program.
VF
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:33 pm
This information is wrong.
It is not planned to let Georgia join NATO soon.
VF