1997 Madrid summit facts for kids
The 1997 Madrid summit was a NATO summit held in Madrid, Spain from 8–9 July 1997. It was the 15th NATO summit and the second in 1997, the previous one being held in Paris. The summit was notable for inviting three new members, Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic to join the alliance.
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Participants
The official meetings were led by NATO Secretary General Javier Solana. One notable absence from the summit was Boris Yeltsin, President of Russia, which was instead represented by lower level bureaucrats,
In attendance
Albania – Prime Minister Bashkim Fino
Armenia – Foreign Minister Alexander Arzoumanian
Austria – Federal Chancellor Viktor Klima
Azerbaijan – President Heidar Aliev
Belarus – President Alexander Lukashenko
Belgium – Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene
Bulgaria – President Petar Stoyanov
Canada – Prime Minister Jean Chrétien
Czech Republic – President Vaclav Havel
Denmark – Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen
Estonia – President Lennart Meri
Finland – President Martti Ahtisaari
France – President Jacques Chirac
Georgia – President Eduard Shevardnadze
Germany – Chancellor Helmut Kohl
Greece – Prime Minister Costas Simitis
Hungary – Prime Minister Gyula Horn
Iceland – Prime Minister David Oddsson
Italy – Prime Minister Romano Prodi
Kazakhstan – Ambassador Aoueskhan Kyrbassov
Latvia – President Guntis Ulmanis
Lithuania – President Algirdas Brazauskas
Luxembourg – Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker
Macedonia – President Kiro Gligorov
Moldova – President Petru Lucinschi
Netherlands – Prime Minister Wim Kok
Norway – Prime Minister Thorbjørn Jagland
Poland – President Aleksander Kwaśniewski
Portugal – Prime Minister António Guterres
Romania – President Emil Constantinescu
Russia – Valerii Serov, Deputy Chairman of Government
Slovakia– Prime Minister Vladimír Mečiar
Slovenia – Prime Minister Janez Drnovšek
Spain – Prime Minister José María Aznar
Turkey – President Süleyman Demirel
Turkmenistan – Ambassador Tchary Niiazov
Ukraine – President Leonid Kuchma
United Kingdom – Prime Minister Tony Blair
United States – President Bill Clinton
Uzbekistan – Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdulaziz Kamilov
Topics
The topic of enlargement was the main focus of the summit. The result of the summit was that Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic were invited to join NATO. Fellow Visegrád Group member Slovakia was excluded from this invitation. Slovakia had held a referendum on NATO membership in May 1997, but turnout in the referendum failed to achieve the required 50% of eligible voters and government sabotage was blamed, which in turn was viewed as one of a string of undemocratic measures taken by Prime Minister Vladimír Mečiar. A majority of NATO members reportedly supported France's proposal to also immediately invite Romania and Slovenia as members, but this was strongly opposed by U.S. President Bill Clinton, and even a "iron-clad guarantee" that they could be invited in two years time was watered-down in favor of an "open door" policy for new potential members. A main concern for the United States was the cost of potentially raising the military standards of the new Eastern European members. Estimates put this cost at as much as US$10 billion, which participants worried could lead to the treaty recognizing the new members being rejected by the Republican-held U.S. Senate. Additionally, a "Charter on a Distinctive Partnership" was signed between NATO and Ukraine, creating the NATO-Ukraine Commission and establishing relations between the two, and a declaration supporting peace efforts in Bosnia-Herzegovina was read and signed by participants.
See also
In Spanish: Cumbre de Madrid de 1997 para niños
