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NATO Enlargement 1. Enhancing security and extending stability through NATO enlargement Contents   1. Enhancing security and extending stability through NATO enlargement   2. Enlargement since the end of the Cold War  3. Accession Timetable  4. Membership Action Plan  5. Study on NATO Enlargement  6. A history of NATO enlargement Editorial Note   Important publisher and editorial information about this document Other Formats English PDF (~1100Kb) Printable version with colour illustrations Order a hardcopy version using the online order form. Seven countries - Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia - formally became NATO members on 29 March 2004 with all the benefits and responsibilities that Alliance membership entails. The enlargement of the Alliance extends the zone of security and stability in Europe and brings some 45 million more European citizens under NATO's protective umbrella. The fifth round of NATO enlargement - the second since the end of the Cold War - is by far the largest, involving as many countries as in all four previous rounds. In the words of NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer: "It will be a major step towards a long-standing NATO objective: a Europe free, united and secure in peace, democracy and common values." All seven countries joined NATO's Partnership for Peace (PfP) programme soon after its creation in 1994 and have subsequently forged ever closer and deeper relations with the Alliance with a view to becoming NATO members. Since 1999, all of these countries have benefited from intensified cooperation under the Membership Action Plan (MAP), a programme of advice, assistance and practical support designed to help the countries wishing to join the Alliance to meet NATO standards. In the process, the seven new members have undergone comprehensive and demanding reforms covering a wide variety of areas extending well beyond defence and security issues and military structures. While undertaking these reforms, these countries have also become involved alongside other NATO Partner countries in many of the Alliance's operations, including NATO-led peacekeeping missions in both the Balkans and in Afghanistan. Participation in these operations has enabled countries to demonstrate that, in addition to being consumers of security - benefiting in particular from the Alliance's collective-defence guarantee that is enshrined in Article 5 of the Washington Treaty - they are also able to contribute to security and to help increase stability in and beyond the Euro-Atlantic area. NATO enlargement is by no means a new phenomenon. In the 55 years since the Alliance was created, 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".

© NATO - OTAN 2004 -	NATO Public Diplomacy Division 1110 Brussels, Belgium - E-mail: natodoc@hq.nato.int