Czechia and NATO

Did you know that Czechia was one of the first three Central and Eastern European countries to join NATO after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War? Do you know which world leader accompanied President Vaclav Havel to a Prague jazz club in January 1994, when NATO launched its Partnership for Peace programme? Learn more about the country that saw the Warsaw Pact officially disbanded, and which hosted the first NATO Summit in the former Eastern Bloc.

We have finally embarked on the path leading us to the Europe which is undivided and free. It is only symbolic that we are setting the important milestone on this way almost exactly 10 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. This year will be remembered as a turning point in our history.

^{Czech Prime Minister Miloš Zeman
during the ceremony marking Czechia’s accession to NATO, 16 March 1999}

Despite lying deep in the heart of Europe, Czechia is known worldwide for its vibrant capital city Prague, artists like Alfons Mucha and Franz Kafka, and athletes like Martina Navrátilová. During the Cold War, it was part of the Eastern Bloc of Soviet-aligned countries while also sharing a border with NATO. It suffered Soviet domination for more than four decades, including occupation by Soviet troops after 1968. It became a member of NATO only 10 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall as one of the first three countries from Central and Eastern Europe to join the very alliance that the Warsaw Pact had opposed.

THE ROAD TO FREEDOM – CZECHIA BEFORE 1989

The Prague Spring

The Velvet Revolution

A few days after the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany on 9 November 1989 and following the demise of the communist regimes in Hungary and Poland, Czechoslovakia went through its own transition: the Velvet Revolution. Named after its non-violent character, the revolution started as a peaceful student demonstration. When these demonstrations were brutally suppressed by riot police, it triggered a chain of events that resulted in the fall of communism and the country’s eventual democratisation. 

On 20 November 1989, over 500,000 protesters gathered in Prague, chanting, “Kdo, když ne my? Kdy, když ne teď?” (“Who else, if not us? When, if not now?”) and jingling and rattling keys to ring in a new era that would see the end of communism. By mid-December, the communist government gave up its rule. The way to Europe, which was once obstructed by barbed wire, was free.

CZECHIA’S JOURNEY TO NATO – 1990-1998

The early 1990s were marked by fundamental global changes that allowed Czechoslovakia to freely decide its own future for the first time in decades. In 1991, the Warsaw Pact was disbanded and the Soviet Union dissolved, giving the young democracies of Central Europe even more freedom to determine their own geopolitical, military and economic futures. 

Czechoslovakia declared its interest in joining the Euro-Atlantic community of nations and its structures, including both NATO and the European Union. However, the country’s new democratic leaders had to take into account the difficulties connected to market and democratic liberalisation, and the worries among the West about potential instability arising from the abrupt political changes. 

To address these challenges, in 1991, Czechoslovakia founded the Visegrád Group together with Hungary and Poland. The initiative aimed to expunge the remnants of communism in the region, implement the required reforms and achieve faster integration in the Euro-Atlantic community. Joint and individual efforts spearheaded by each country significantly contributed to a quicker fulfilment of requirements and the achievement of NATO membership.

In December 1992, Czechoslovakia split into Czechia and Slovakia, in a peaceful process that is sometimes called the Velvet Divorce due to its conciliatory nature and the persistence of exceptionally close relations between the two countries. This opened a new chapter for Czechia as an independent country.

At the heart of negotiations: Václav Havel

President Václav Havel played a key role in the accession of his country to NATO. A former dissident and a political prisoner of the Communist regime, he became a key player in the Velvet Revolution and Czechoslovakia’s movement for democratic reform as the first democratically elected president after the country regained its freedom from communism. Subsequently, he was one of the first heads of state from the other side of the Iron Curtain to pass the threshold of NATO Headquarters in Brussels. He shook hands with NATO Secretary General Manfred Wörner as early as March 1991 and established close relations with the Alliance as quickly as possible. Havel became a firm believer that the Alliance should be opened up to neighbouring countries that were pursuing the same goals of freedom and democracy. While he feared that Central and Eastern Europe could be prone to instability during this time of radical change, he also understood that NATO was at a crossroads and had the opportunity to redefine itself.

 […] the windows having opened in the closed societies of Eastern Europe, the Allies do not intend to let them slam shut again.

^{NATO Secretary General Manfred Wörner
during the North Atlantic Assembly in Rome, 9 October 1989}

Václav Klaus, Prime Minister of Czechia, signs the Partnership for Peace Framework Document at NATO Headquarters on 10 March 1994.

As Europe emerged from the divisions of the Cold War, NATO decided it would establish diplomatic relations with former Eastern Bloc countries that desired a closer relationship with the Alliance. Described as extending the "hand of friendship", this initiative soon took the form of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (1991), where almost 40 countries – including NATO members and new partner countries like Czechoslovakia – could meet around the same table and consult each other on common security issues. Later, in 1994, the Alliance created the Partnership for Peace programme for individual partners that wanted to set up more practical and targeted cooperation with NATO. Czechia participated in both of these initiatives and many other activities that NATO was offering.

In the mid-90s, it was becoming clear that the newly formed partnerships were only the beginning. As US President Bill Clinton said in 1994, the enlargement of NATO was "no longer a question of whether, but when and how". At the 1997 NATO Summit in Madrid, the then 16 NATO member states started accession talks with Czechia, together with Hungary and Poland – an important step towards their NATO membership.

Cold War adversaries reuniting

Even before NATO's Partnership for Peace initiative was launched in 1994, Czechia actively engaged with the Allies through military cooperation to improve interoperability and the professionalism of its forces. Czechia took part in Exercise Cooperative Bridge, which was hosted in Poland in the very first year that it joined the Partnership for Peace. It was the first exercise of its kind, where NATO Allies trained alongside former adversaries from the Eastern Bloc, on the territory of a former Warsaw Pact country. A year later, Czechia organised Exercise Cooperative Challenge on its own soil, which included troops from 14 different countries.

This story underlines one of the most heartening developments since the end of the Cold War: the return of the nations of Central Europe as our equal partners and friends.

^{NATO Secretary General Javier Solana, 5 February 1998}

‘WE ARE WHERE WE BELONG’ – 1999 AND BEYOND

The accession to NATO

Inside the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri in the United States, the accession ceremony on 12 March 1999 was a very personal moment for many. The ceremony was organised by the then US Secretary of State, Czechoslovak-born Madeleine Albright, whose family immigrated to the United States after the communist takeover in 1948. During the ceremony, Albright did not hide her joy and summarised the occasion in the simplest way: “Hallelujah!”

Behind the documents and formalities for the accession, there were strong emotions. A flag-raising ceremony took place at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium on 16 March, just a few days after the accession ceremony in the United States. The Prime Ministers of Czechia, Hungary and Poland stood together next to NATO Secretary General Javier Solana. With the accession, NATO officially erased old lines dividing Europe and entered a new phase of uniting East and West.

The 2002 Prague Summit: opening NATO’s door even further

Only three years later, in 2002, Prague offered to host a NATO summit. It was the first summit to take place in a country from the former Eastern Bloc. In November, Heads of State and Government from the Alliance’s now 19 member countries convened in Prague Castle to witness yet another transformative moment for post-Cold War Europe: the start of accession talks for seven additional Central and Eastern European countries, namely Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. All seven countries would later join NATO, in 2004.

Prague is the transformation summit. It is a truly defining moment for the North Atlantic Alliance. We will welcome new members, take on new missions, modernise our military capabilities, and strengthen our relations with friends and partners throughout the Euro-Atlantic area. By doing so we will re-enforce that essential transatlantic bond on which our security and defence still depends.

^{NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson, 21 November 2002}