News background： North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Xinhua News Agency, Brussels, May 18th, news background: North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Xinhua News Agency reporter Li Jizhi
On the 18th, at the online video ceremony held at the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the ambassadors of Finland and Sweden to NATO formally submitted their applications for NATO membership to the Secretary-General of the organization, Stoltenberg. Stoltenberg said that NATO will evaluate the application for membership as soon as possible.
NATO is a military and political group established in 1949 by the United States to win over some European countries in order to contain the Soviet Union after World War II. Its purpose is to make joint efforts in collective defense and maintaining peace and security, promote democracy, rule of law and welfare in the Euro-Atlantic region through political and military means, and safeguard the freedom and security of member States.
During the Cold War, the opposite of NATO was the Warsaw Treaty Organization (Warsaw Pact) formed by the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries in 1955. At the beginning of NATO’s establishment, there were 12 member countries: the United States, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, the Netherlands, Portugal and the United Kingdom. During the treaty against the Soviet Union and China, NATO expanded three times: in February 1952, Turkey and Greece joined; In May 1955, the Federal Republic of Germany joined; In May 1982, Spain joined.
In the last 20 years of the 20th century, with the drastic changes in Eastern Europe, the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, NATO began to implement the "all-round crisis response strategy", and started the eastward expansion process by intervening in the crisis in the former Yugoslavia and implementing the "Peace Partnership Plan".
Since 1992, Poland and other eastern European countries have put forward requests to join NATO. In September, 1995, NATO officially released the report on its eastward expansion. In July 1997, the NATO Madrid Summit officially decided to admit Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic to NATO. In March 1999, the three countries formally became new members of NATO, thus increasing the number of NATO members to 19.
In November 2002, at the Prague summit, NATO decided to invite Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania and Bulgaria to join. In March 2004, the above seven countries formally joined NATO, increasing the number of NATO members to 26.
In April 2008, NATO leaders made a decision at the Bucharest summit to promote the western Balkan countries to join NATO. After a series of negotiations and corresponding procedures, Albania and Croatia joined NATO in April 2009. Montenegro became a member of NATO in June 2017. North Macedonia officially joined NATO in March 2020.
To apply for NATO membership, certain conditions must be met. According to Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty, any European country capable of promoting the principles of the Treaty and contributing to the security of the Euro-Atlantic region can accept the invitation of NATO to become a member of the bloc. The decision to expand the membership must be unanimously agreed by all NATO members.
NATO’s expansion policy is not static, but constantly undergoing adjustment. The three expansions during the Cold War were mainly due to strategic considerations. After the cold war, NATO is faced with the puzzle of whether it should continue to expand. To this end, NATO conducted a special study and finally decided that countries applying for membership must meet certain political, economic and military standards to ensure that they are not only beneficiaries of the group, but also contributors.
According to NATO, these standards include: establishing an effective democratic political system based on market economy, treating ethnic minorities fairly, committing to peaceful settlement of conflicts, being willing and able to contribute to NATO military operations, and committing to maintaining democratic civil-military relations and institutional structures.
There is a complicated procedure for NATO to recruit new members, which consists of seven steps. The first step is to enter into the contract negotiations. Nato’s formal invitation to the applicant country for negotiation is regarded as the first step to open the accession procedure. The second step is to submit a letter of intent. The foreign ministers of the invited countries wrote to the Secretary-General of NATO in the form of a letter of intent, confirming their acceptance of the obligations of the member countries and fulfilling their commitments. At the same time, a timetable for completing the reform should be attached. The third step is to sign the protocol. NATO prepares a new protocol for each new member, and all NATO members have to sign the new protocol. The fourth step is to ratify the protocol. The governments of all NATO member countries should ratify the protocol according to their domestic requirements and procedures. The fifth step is to invite people into the contract. After all NATO members have ratified the Protocol and informed the US government, the NATO Secretary General will send an invitation to the invited countries to join NATO. The sixth step is to join the treaty. After receiving the invitation, the invited country will join the new treaty according to its own procedures. The last step is the formal entry into force.
After its establishment, NATO expanded eight times in total, and its member countries increased to 30. After the end of the Cold War, NATO, a military and political group, did not dissolve, but constantly expanded its geographical boundaries and scope of activities. Public opinion widely believes that this is because the United States needs to use NATO to continue to control European affairs and safeguard American global hegemony.