Eng. / Fr. / Ru. /Since the Alliance was created in 1949, its membership has grown from the 12 founders to today’s 26 members. Enlargement is in fact an on-going and dynamic process, based upon Article 10 of the Washington Treaty, which states that membership is open to any “European State in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area”.
Since NATO’s creation in 1949, the Alliance has taken in new members on five separate occasions in 1952, 1955, 1982, 1999 and 2004. In this way, the 12 founding members – Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States – have grown to 26.
The first round of enlargement took place in 1952 and brought in Greece and Turkey, thereby extending security and stability to South-eastern Europe. Three years later, in 1955, the Federal Republic of Germany became NATO’s 15th member. And Spain became the Alliance’s 16th member when it joined in 1982. In the wake of German reunification in 1990, the whole of Germany, including the territory of the former German Democratic Republic, came under NATO’s protective umbrella.
The fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact after the end of the Cold War opened up the possibility of further NATO enlargement. The new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe were eager to join to become integrated into Euro-Atlantic institutions and guarantee their freedom.
In 1995, the Alliance carried out and published the results of a Study on NATO Enlargement that considered the merits of admitting new members and how they should be brought in. It concluded that the end of the Cold War provided a unique opportunity to build improved security in the entire Euro-Atlantic area and that NATO enlargement would contribute to enhanced stability and security for all.
The Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland were invited to begin accession talks at the Alliance’s Madrid Summit in 1997 and on 12 March 1999 they became the first former members of the Warsaw Pact to join NATO.
Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia and Slovenia were invited to begin accession talks at the Alliance’s Prague Summit in 2002 and joined NATO on 29 March 2004.
At the 2006 Riga Summit, NATO Heads of State and Government declared that the Alliance intends to extend further invitations to countries that meet NATO standards to join NATO at the next Summit, in 2008.
At the Bucharest Summit in April 2008, Albania and Croatia were invited to begin accession talks with NATO. Allied leaders also agreed to invite the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia1 as soon as a mutually acceptable solution to the issue over the country’s name has been reached with Greece. All three countries have been participating in NATO’s Membership Action Plan (MAP) for a number of years to prepare for possible membership.
