[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 67 (Wednesday, May 7, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5801-S5802]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           PROTOCOL FOR NATO

  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, we are still in morning business. I note 
that no other colleagues are yet on the floor. I will speak again in 
morning business, but only briefly this time, as it relates to the 
issue before us and the protocol for the North Atlantic Treaty 
Organization and the ascendency to that organization of Bulgaria, 
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia.
  As we began to expand NATO a good number of years ago, I had voted 
against some of the early expansions because I did not think we had yet 
effectively designed our role in a post-cold-war era and a post-Soviet 
Union era and about the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as it 
relates to what it would be doing in the future. As we have seen that 
role adjust and change over the last several years, certainly the 
activity in the Balkans and the ability of NATO to participate there in 
bringing stability to that region has played an increasing role.
  I have also been concerned that as NATO grew, we effectively changed 
our posture there and, in fact, even reduced some of our presence 
there.
  I had the opportunity during the Easter break to travel to Romania. 
Romania, in a few years, will be eligible for and will make application 
for entry into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. With the growth 
and development of the European Union and, of course, NATO itself, it 
is important, I believe, that we continue to expand its role and 
reshape its presence on the European Continent.
  We will have before us Executive Calendar No. 6, Treaty Document 108-
04, bringing these countries in to NATO

[[Page S5802]]

which is an important expression on the part of this country of support 
of these countries. They are struggling mightily as they emerge from 
behind the Iron Curtain, as new democracies of Central and Eastern 
Europe shaping their own economies, to put their people to work, to 
assume their role in the European Community.
  Many of these emerging countries, new democracies, were also very 
supportive of the coalition of Great Britain, Spain, and the United 
States in our recent effort in Iraq. They recognize the importance of 
stability. They also were the subject of a form of dictatorship in 
communism and control and their disappearance behind the Iron Curtain 
and within the Soviet Union for over 45 years. They appreciate the 
right of free people to shape their countries and their economies, 
probably more so than any other country around the globe today because 
they are newly freed nations.
  I think it is important, in dealing with this effectively, as we 
debate it this afternoon and tomorrow, to understand that it is a role 
we play in cooperation with the European Community today and we will 
continue to have a strong role in NATO, but one that I think deserves 
to be redefined as the new emerging democracies of Europe become 
members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
  I am very excited about the opportunity for them. I was extremely 
excited to see what they are doing in Romania today and the hard work 
that is going on there to shape a new country, to build an economy, and 
to get their people back to work and out from under the old government 
bureaucracies of communism, and to recognize there really is a 
marketplace and there really is representative government and that free 
people can be phenomenally inventive, creative, and geniuses when they 
are free to the market, free to the profit incentive.
  Romania clearly has that opportunity. I was over there on a different 
mission than to deal with NATO. I was there on a mission for children. 
I am the chairman of the Congressional Coalition on the Adoption 
Institute. As Romania was emerging, we know there were a good number of 
accusations over the past years, following the dictatorship of 
Ceausescu and when the world got a chance to see inside Romania, about 
how they were handling their orphans and children who had no families.
  I began to work through the Adoption Institute for the ratification 
of the Hague Treaty which developed an international protocol that all 
nations we hope will conform to as to how they deal with their children 
and how they deal with intercountry adoption within a process that 
makes it transparent, legitimate, and legal so there is no trafficking 
of children.
  Romania has been accused of such activity. As a result of that, the 
President of Romania and their parliament decided to put a moratorium 
on intercountry adoption for a time. It caught a number of Americans 
who were in the process of adopting Romanian children midstream in 
those adoptions. They are working very hard at this moment, if you 
will, to clean up their act. They have excellent people working now to 
reform the whole of child care in Romania. We saw great examples of 
that.
  They are also working to make sure they are in full compliance with 
the protocol of the Hague Treaty and to build a transparency into the 
system and to effectively register the agencies that function in the 
areas of adoption.
  In the course of all of that discussion, and in visiting with nearly 
all of the elected officials of Romania, certainly the president, the 
prime minister, defense ministers, and others, they recognize all of 
these issues go hand in glove as they emerge into an environment where 
they can become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and 
ultimately a member of the European Union. Of course, for them and for 
their country, their economy, and their citizenry, this is an ever-
important process, an important march and journey that the country of 
Romania is on.
  That is certainly true in the broad sense of all of the countries I 
just mentioned that are now looking for acceptance into the North 
Atlantic Treaty Organization. It is important we speak to that. A good 
deal more will be said certainly by Senators Warner, Levin, Roberts and 
others, along with Senator Dodd, as we deal with this issue and vote on 
this particular Executive Calendar number.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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