Enlargement of NATO facts for kids

NATO flag

NATO is a military alliance of thirty-two European and North American countries that constitutes a system of collective defense. The process of joining the alliance is governed by Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which allows for the invitation of "other European States" only and by subsequent agreements. Countries wishing to join must meet certain requirements and complete a multi-step process involving political dialog and military integration. The accession process is overseen by the North Atlantic Council, NATO's governing body. NATO was formed in 1949 with twelve founding members and has added new members nine times. The first additions were Greece and Turkey in 1952. In May 1955, West Germany joined NATO, which was one of the conditions agreed to as part of the end of the country's occupation by France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, prompting the Soviet Union to form its own collective security alliance (commonly called the Warsaw Pact) later that month. Following the end of the Franco regime, newly democratic Spain chose to join NATO in 1982.

In 1990, the negotiators reached an agreement that a reunified Germany would be in NATO under West Germany's existing membership. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, many former Warsaw Pact and post-Soviet states sought to join NATO. Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic became NATO members in 1999, amid much debate within NATO itself and Russian opposition. NATO then formalized the process of joining the organization with "Membership Action Plans", which aided the accession of seven Central and Eastern Europe countries shortly before the 2004 Istanbul summit: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Two countries on the Adriatic Sea—Albania and Croatia—joined on 1 April 2009 before the 2009 Strasbourg–Kehl summit. The next member states to join NATO were Montenegro on 5 June 2017, and North Macedonia on 27 March 2020.

Finland joined on 4 April 2023, and Sweden joined on 7 March 2024. Ukraine applied for NATO membership in September 2022. Two other states have formally informed NATO of their membership aspirations: Bosnia and Herzegovina and Georgia. Kosovo also aspires to join NATO. Joining the alliance is a debate topic in several other European countries outside the alliance, including Austria, Cyprus, Ireland, Malta, Moldova, and Serbia.

Criteria and process
See also

Criteria and process

Article 10 and the Open Door Policy

The North Atlantic Treaty is the basis of the organization, and, as such, any changes including new membership requires ratification by all current signers of the treaty. The treaty's Article 10 describes how non-member states may join NATO:

The Parties may, by unanimous agreement, invite any other European State in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area to accede to this Treaty. Any State so invited may become a Party to the Treaty by depositing its instrument of accession with the Government of the United States of America. The Government of the United States of America will inform each of the Parties of the deposit of each such instrument of accession.

Article 10 poses two general limits to non-member states. First, only European states are eligible for new membership, and second, these states not only need the approval of all the existing member states, but every member state can put some criteria forward that have to be attained. In practice, NATO formulates a common set of criteria. However, for instance, Greece blocked the Republic of Macedonia's accession to NATO for many years because it disagreed with the use of the name Macedonia. Turkey similarly opposes the participation of the Republic of Cyprus with NATO institutions as long as the Cyprus dispute is not resolved.

Since the 1991 Rome summit, when the delegations of its member states officially offered cooperation with Europe's newly democratic states, NATO has addressed and further defined the expectations and procedure for adding new members. The 1994 Brussels Declaration reaffirmed the principles in Article 10 and led to the "Study on NATO Enlargement". Published in September 1995, the study outlined the "how and why" of possible enlargement in Europe, highlighting three principles from the 1949 treaty for members to have: "democracy, individual liberty, and rule of law".

As NATO Secretary General Willy Claes noted, the 1995 study did not specify the "who or when," though it discussed how the then newly formed Partnership for Peace and North Atlantic Cooperation Council could assist in the enlargement process, and noted that on-going territorial disputes could be an issue for whether a country was invited. At the 1997 Madrid summit, the heads of state of NATO issued the "Madrid Declaration on Euro-Atlantic Security and Cooperation" which invited three Central European countries to join the alliance, out of the twelve that had at that point requested to join, laying out a path for others to follow. The text of Article 10 was the origin for the April 1999 statement of a "NATO open door policy".

In practice, diplomats and officials have stated that having no territorial disputes is a prerequisite to joining NATO, as a member with such a dispute would be automatically considered under attack by the occupying entity. However, West Germany joined NATO in 1955 despite having territorial disputes with East Germany and other states until the early 1970s.

Membership Action Plan

The biggest step in the formalization of the process for inviting new members came at the 1999 Washington summit when the Membership Action Plan (MAP) mechanism was approved as a stage for the current members to regularly review the formal applications of aspiring members. A country's participation in MAP entails the annual presentation of reports concerning its progress on five different measures:

Willingness to settle international, ethnic or external territorial disputes by peaceful means, commitment to the rule of law and human rights, and democratic control of armed forces
Ability to contribute to the organization's defense and missions
Devotion of sufficient resources to armed forces to be able to meet the commitments of membership
Security of sensitive information, and safeguards ensuring it
Compatibility of domestic legislation with NATO cooperation

NATO provides feedback as well as technical advice to each country and evaluates its progress on an individual basis. Once members agree that a country meets the requirements, NATO can issue that country an invitation to begin accession talks. The final accession process, once invited, involves five steps leading up to the signing of the accession protocols and the acceptance and ratification of those protocols by the governments of the current NATO members.

In November 2002, NATO invited seven countries to join it via the MAP: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. All seven invitees joined in March 2004, which was observed at a flag-raising ceremony on 2 April. After that date, NATO numbered 26 allies. Other former MAP participants were Albania and Croatia between May 2002 and April 2009, Montenegro between December 2009 and June 2017, and North Macedonia between April 1999 and March 2020, when it joined NATO. As of 2022^[update], there was only one country participating in a MAP, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Intensified dialogue

Intensified Dialogue was first introduced in April 2005 at an informal meeting of foreign ministers in Vilnius, Lithuania, as a response to Ukrainian aspirations for NATO membership and related reforms taking place under President Viktor Yushchenko, and which followed the 2002 signing of the NATO–Ukraine Action Plan under his predecessor, Leonid Kuchma. This formula, which includes discussion of a "full range of political, military, financial and security issues relating to possible NATO membership ... had its roots in the 1997 Madrid summit", where the participants had agreed "to continue the Alliance's intensified dialogs with those nations that aspire to NATO membership or that otherwise wish to pursue a dialog with NATO on membership questions".

In September 2006, Georgia became the second to be offered the Intensified Dialogue status, following a rapid change in foreign policy under President Mikhail Saakashvili and what it perceived as a demonstration of military readiness during the 2006 Kodori crisis. Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia similarly received offers at the April 2008 Bucharest summit. While its neighbors both requested and accepted the dialog program, Serbia's offer was presented to guarantee the possibility of future ties with the alliance.

Summary Table and Map

18 February 1952		First	Turkey
Date	Round		Country
18 February 1952		First	Greece
9 May 1955		Second	West Germany
30 May 1982		Third	Spain
3 October 1990		—	German reunification
12 March 1999		Fourth	Czech Republic
			Hungary
			Poland
29 March 2004		Fifth	Bulgaria
			Estonia
			Latvia
			Lithuania
			Romania
			Slovakia
			Slovenia
1 April 2009		Sixth	Albania
1 April 2009		Sixth	Croatia
5 June 2017		Seventh	Montenegro
27 March 2020		Eighth	North Macedonia
4 April 2023		Ninth	Finland
7 March 2024		Ninth	Sweden