Military

Statement of Rep. Doug Bereuter

Chairman, Subcommittee on Europe

Subcommittee markup of H.R. 2550

June 26, 2003
 

The bill before us would extend exemptions from provisions of the American Servicemembers’ Protection Act of 2002 to the seven NATO accession countries. By enacting this bill, the Congress would ensure that the seven accession countries receive the same treatment as our other NATO allies with respect to receiving U.S. military assistance.

I would like to thank my colleague, the distinguished gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Shimkus, for introducing this legislation and for asking me to co-sponsor it.

Mr. Shimkus has been one of the strongest advocates of NATO enlargement in the Congress since he arrived in Congress in 1997. He serves as the chairman of the House Baltic Caucus, a role in which he helps ensure good relations between the United States and Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. And, of course, he is a proud Lithuanian-American.

Mr. Shimkus and I and nine other Members of the House, plus staff, were in the Baltic states less than a month ago, after the NATO Parliamentary Assembly’s spring session. We saw first-hand how U.S. military assistance is helping those countries implement the reforms needed for them to keep their NATO commitments when they join the Alliance next year.

Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are small countries that have had to build their militaries from scratch after regaining their freedom from Soviet occupation. The relatively modest assistance from the United States is helping them to develop niche capabilities like explosive ordnance disposal teams, military police, and mine-hunting ships — capabilities that NATO needs.

Likewise, the military assistance that we provide to Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia is helping them reform their militaries to contribute to NATO when they join the Alliance next year. The funding is modest, ranging from less than five million dollars for Slovenia to more than fourteen million dollars for Romania.

These seven countries have been acting like allies even before they signed the accession protocols on March 26. All have made contributions to NATO operations in the Balkans or to the U.S.-led coalitions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Most notable, perhaps, was the mountain battalion that Romania sent to Afghanistan, using its own C-130 transport aircraft, to fight alongside American troops against al-Qaeda and Taliban forces.

The bill before us would ensure that U.S. military assistance will continue to be provided to these seven countries in the same manner as it is provided to our current NATO allies. Under the American Servicemembers’ Protection Act, as of July 1 — next Tuesday — “no United States military assistance may be provided to the government of a country that is a party to the International Criminal Court.”

The law does permit the President to issue two kinds of waivers: One is for countries that sign an Article 98 agreement with the United States, which prohibits the court from taking action against Americans present in that country.

Romania is the only one of the seven accession countries that has signed an Article 98 agreement. The other waiver can be granted by the President if he believes it is in the national interest to do so.

It is clear that continuing military assistance to the seven accession countries is in the national interest, which is why the President requested aid for these countries and why the Congress voted to appropriate the funds. If the bill before us cannot be enacted in time to prevent the cutoff of military assistance to these seven countries, I strongly urge the President to issue waivers to ensure they continue to receive funding.

If enacted, this bill would extend a permanent exemption from the military assistance cutoff provision to, and I quote, “a country that has concluded a protocol with NATO for the accession of that country to NATO.” The American Servicemembers’ Protection Act already provides such an exemption for NATO members; this bill would simply extend that exemption to the accession countries.

This legislation is in keeping with the decision of the President on March 26 to sign NATO accession protocols with these seven nations. It is in keeping with the unanimous vote in the Senate on May 8 to give its advice and consent to the ratification of those protocols.

The United States already has fulfilled its constitutional requirements for these seven countries to become our allies. Four of our allies have already done the same. Now, we are simply waiting for the remaining fourteen allies to follow their constitutional procedures for ratifying these protocols.

In the meantime, I think it is only fair that we treat the seven accession countries as we treat our current NATO allies and ensure that the United States continues to provide them with military assistance so that they are ready to contribute to the Alliance. That is exactly what this legislation contemplates. Therefore, I urge my colleagues on the Subcommittee to approve this bill.