2 Mar. 2004

Seven invitees on the verge of NATO membership Background Focus on 7 Invitees Overview of ratification process Enlargement Opinion 02/03/2004 - NATO Statement by NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer on Enlargement On 2 March, the NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer invited Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia to become members of NATO. Mr. de Hoop Scheffer announced that all 19 NATO member countries had notified the Government of the United States of America of their acceptance of the protocols to the North Atlantic Treaty on the accession of the seven countries. “I have therefore, on behalf of the member states, communicated to the Governments of the seven countries an invitation to accede to the North Atlantic Treaty,” he said in a statement. The accession protocols are amendments to the North Atlantic Treaty, which once ratified by all 19 countries, and the instruments of ratification deposited with the United States State Department (which is the depository of the Treaty), will allow the seven invited countries to become parties to the Treaty and members of NATO. The seven countries will formally become members of the Alliance on the date of the deposit of their instruments of accession with the US Government.