Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that answer the question.
Query: What is the newest member country to join NATO?
NATO has added new members seven times since its founding in 1949, and since 2017 NATO has had 29 members. Twelve countries were part of the founding of NATO: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In 1952, Greece and Turkey became members of the Alliance, joined later by West Germany (in 1955) and Spain (in 1982). In 1990, with the reunification of Germany, NATO grew to include the former country of East Germany. Between 1994 and 1997, wider forums for regional cooperation between NATO and its neighbors were set up, including the Partnership for Peace, the Mediterranean Dialogue initiative and the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council. In 1997, three former Warsaw Pact countries, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Poland, were invited to join NATO. After this fourth enlargement in 1999, the Vilnius group of the Baltics and seven East European countries formed in May 2000 to cooperate and lobby for further NATO membership. Seven of these countries joined in the fifth enlargement in 2004. The Adriatic States Albania and Croatia joined in the sixth enlargement in 2009, Montenegro in 2017.
During the NATO summit in Bucharest, United States and Poland called for Georgia to be allowed to join the Membership Action Plan (MAP). The alliance decided not to offer Georgia a MAP due to opposition from several countries, led by Germany and France, who feared the decision would anger Russia. Instead NATO countries assured the Georgian side in a special communiqué that they would eventually join the alliance once the requirement for membership were met. Members further pledged to review the decision in December 2008 at the meeting of NATO foreign ministers.
New membership in the alliance has been largely from Central and Eastern Europe, including former members of the Warsaw Pact. Accession to the alliance is governed with individual Membership Action Plans, and requires approval by each current member. NATO currently has two candidate countries that are in the process of joining the alliance: Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republic of Macedonia. In NATO official statements, the Republic of Macedonia is always referred to as the "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", with a footnote stating that "Turkey recognizes the Republic of Macedonia under its constitutional name". Though Macedonia completed its requirements for membership at the same time as Croatia and Albania, who joined NATO in 2009, its accession was blocked by Greece pending a resolution of the Macedonia naming dispute.[81] In order to support each other in the process, new and potential members in the region formed the Adriatic Charter in 2003.[82] Georgia was also named as an aspiring member, and was promised "future membership" during the 2008 summit in Bucharest,[83] though in 2014, US President Barack Obama said the country was not "currently on a path" to membership.[84]
NATO provides feedback as well as technical advice to each country and evaluates its progress on an individual basis. Once a country is agreed to meet the requirements, NATO can issue that country an invitation to begin accession talks. Currently, two countries have a Membership Action Plan: Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia. Former MAP participants were Albania and Croatia between May 2002 and April 2009, and Montenegro between December 2009 and June 2017, when they joined NATO. The final accession process, once invited, involves five steps leading up to the signing of the accession protocols and the acceptance and ratification of those protocols by the governments of the current NATO members.
Five EU member states, all who have declared their non-alignment with military alliances, are not NATO members: Austria, Finland, Ireland, Malta, and Sweden. Switzerland, which is surrounded by the EU, has also maintained their neutrality by staying out of the bloc. All these countries, however, have joined the Partnership for Peace programme and at least Sweden and Finland signed a specific host country support agreement with NATO in 2014.
After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, NATO created the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC) to strengthen institutional cooperation on the political and security issues between NATO members and former Warsaw Pact countries. Albania joined in 1992.
In 2008 a poll following the NATO summit showed that 82.5% of Macedonian citizens surveyed opposed changing their country's constitutional name in order to join NATO. NATO membership in general in 2008 was supported by 85.2% of the population. Elections were called following the 2008 summit, resulting in further support for the center-right pro-NATO party, VMRO–DPMNE. The elections were marred by violence that was criticized by NATO members.
Following an agreement in June 2018 to rename the country the Republic of North Macedonia, NATO agreed to consider extending an invitation to the country to join at its summit on 11–12 July. On 11 July 2018, NATO invited Macedonia to begin membership talks, saying the country could join the organization once the naming issue was resolved. Formal accession talks began on 18 October 2018. Greece is expected to be the first NATO member state to ratify Macedonia’s NATO accession protocol.
The Agency now has 30 member countries. Since 2007 it has welcomed Slovenia and the Slovak Republic as member countries. The newest member is Bulgaria, who joined in 2017.
The accession of Albania to NATO took place in 2009. Albania's relationship with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) began in 1992 when it joined the North Atlantic Cooperation Council. In 1994, it entered NATO's Partnership for Peace, which began Albania's process of accession into the alliance. In 1999, the country received a Membership Action Plan (MAP). The country received an invitation to join at the 2008 Bucharest Summit and became a full member on April 1, 2009.
Currently no major political party in Ireland fully supports ascension into NATO, a reflection on public and media opinion in the country. There are a number of politicians who support Ireland joining NATO, mainly within the centre-right Fine Gael party, but the majority of politicians still do not. It is widely understood that a referendum would have to be held before any changes could be made to neutrality or to joining NATO. Former Secretary General of NATO Anders Fogh Rasmussen said during a visit to the country in 2013 that the "door is open" for Ireland to join NATO at any time.
While countries outside the NATO command structure (including some NATO member countries such as France) do not strictly fall into this classification structure and there may be incidences of overlap (particularly in ranks between countries) the codes still provide a useful gauge in determining what ranks are broadly equivalent.
In March 2009, the Polish Foreign Minister, Radosław Sikorski, suggested including Russia in NATO. Speaking to one of the main Polish daily newspapers after the lecture, Mr Sikorski explained, 'I stand by everything I said, but that doesn't mean I'm inviting Russia to join the NATO. I simply presented a certain hypothetical vision, a reference to a debate that took place in the NATO in the mid-1990s. Then, under the Clinton administration, there was a debate on whether, and on what terms, Russia could become a member of the Alliance.' Russian leadership, however, made it clear Russia did not plan to join the alliance, preferring to keep cooperation on a lower level now. In March 2009, the Russian envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, in response to Radosław Sikorski′s proposal, while not ruling out NATO membership at some point in the future, was quoted as saying: "Great powers don't join coalitions, they create coalitions. Russia considers itself a great power."
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party. NATO's headquarters are in Brussels, Belgium, one of the 28 member states across North America and Europe, the newest of which, Albania and Croatia, joined in April 2009. An additional 22 countries participate in NATO's "Partnership for Peace", with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programs. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the world's defence spending.
After its formation in 1949 with twelve founding members, NATO grew by including Greece and Turkey in 1952 and West Germany in 1955, and then later Spain in 1982. After the Cold War ended, and Germany reunited in 1990, there was a debate in NATO about continued expansion eastward. In 1999, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic joined the organization, amid much debate within the organization and Russian opposition. Another expansion came with the accession of seven Central and Eastern European countries: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. These nations were first invited to start talks of membership during the 2002 Prague summit, and joined NATO shortly before the 2004 Istanbul summit. Albania and Croatia joined on 1 April 2009, prior to the 2009 Strasbourg–Kehl summit. The most recent member state to be added to NATO is Montenegro on 5 June 2017.
The National Codification Bureaus or NATO Codification Bureaux (NCB) are a NATO organization that oversees the management of the National Codification System (NCS). It is governed by NATO Allied Committee 135 (AC/135), with each member nation's National Codification Bureau controlling and issuing its own unique National Stock Numbers. NATO or European Union membership is not required to do so. Non-NATO (or "Partner") countries can be allowed to join if recommended, vetted, and approved by AC/135. 
Relations between Ukraine and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) started in 1994. Ukraine applied to join the NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) in 2008. Plans for NATO membership were shelved by Ukraine following the 2010 presidential election in which Viktor Yanukovych, who preferred to keep the country non-aligned, was elected President. Amid the Euromaidan unrest, Yanukovych fled Ukraine in February 2014. The interim Yatsenyuk Government which came to power, initially said, with reference to the country's non-aligned status, that it had no plans to join NATO. However, following the Russian military invasion in Ukraine and parliamentary elections in October 2014, the new government made joining NATO a priority.
Enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is the process of including new member states in NATO. NATO is a military alliance of twenty-seven European and two North American countries that constitutes a system of collective defense. The process of joining the alliance is governed by Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which allows only for the invitation of "other European States", and by subsequent agreements. Countries wishing to join have to meet certain requirements and complete a multi-step process involving political dialogue and military integration. The accession process is overseen by the North Atlantic Council, NATO's governing body.
The accession of Croatia to NATO took place in 2009. Croatia entered into NATO's Partnership for Peace in 2000, which began the process of accession into the alliance. The country received an invitation to join at the 2008 Bucharest summit and became a full member on April 1, 2009.
Following independence, Ukraine declared itself a neutral state. The country has had a limited military partnership with Russian Federation, other CIS countries and a partnership with NATO since 1994. In the 2000s, the government was leaning towards NATO, and a deeper cooperation with the alliance was set by the NATO-Ukraine Action Plan signed in 2002. It was later agreed that the question of joining NATO should be answered by a national referendum at some point in the future. Recently deposed President Viktor Yanukovych considered the current level of co-operation between Ukraine and NATO sufficient, and was against Ukraine joining NATO. During the 2008 Bucharest summit, NATO declared that Ukraine would eventually become a member of NATO when it meets the criteria for the accession.
Bulgaria joined NATO's Partnership for Peace in 1994 and applied for NATO membership in 1997. During the November 2002 Prague Summit Bulgaria was one of seven former socialist countries invited to join the Alliance. Bulgaria became a member of NATO in March 2004. The country is also working toward NATO compatibility in communications and training, and has established a Peacekeeping Training Center.
As of 2018, NATO officially recognizes four aspiring members: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Macedonia and Ukraine. The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina within Bosnia and Herzegovina has expressed willingness to join NATO, however, it faces consistent political pressure from Republika Srpska, the other political entity in the country, alongside its partners in Moscow. Macedonia has been prevented from joining the alliance by Greece, one effect of the Macedonian naming dispute. Future expansion is currently a topic of debate in several countries outside the alliance, and countries like Sweden, Finland, and Serbia have open political debate on the topic of membership, while in countries like Ukraine, support and opposition to membership is tied to ethnic and nationalist ideologies. The incorporation of countries formerly part of the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union has been a cause of increased tension between NATO countries and Russia.
A poll following the 2008 summit showed that 82.5 percent of citizens surveyed opposed changing the constitutional name in order to join NATO. Elections were called following the 2008 summit, resulting in further support for the centre-right pro-NATO party, VMRO-DPMNE. The elections were marred by violence that was criticized by NATO members. Ethnic tensions have persisted in Macedonia, and NATO has called for dialogue following clashes such as those in the city of Kumanovo in 2015, which were blamed in part on the delay in NATO and European integration. NATO membership in general is supported by 81 percent according to a November 2014 poll. On 12 June 2017, Prime Minister Zoran Zaev signaled that he will consider alternatives names for the country in order to strike a compromise with Greece, settle the naming dispute, and lift Greek objections to Macedonia joining the alliance. Zaev also floated the idea of Macedonia joining the alliance under the provisional name it uses at the United Nations. After the Prespa Agreement was reached in June 2018, NATO invited Macedonia to begin membership talks on 11 July 2018, saying the country could join the organization once the naming issue was resolved. Formal accession talks began on 18 October 2018.
Georgia and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) relations officially began in 1994 when Georgia joined the NATO-run Partnership for Peace. Georgia has moved quickly following the Rose Revolution in 2003 to seek closer ties and eventual membership with NATO. Georgia's powerful northern neighbor, Russia, has opposed the closer ties, including those expressed at the 2008 Bucharest summit where NATO members promised that Georgia would eventually join the organization. In the 7 December 2011 statement of the North Atlantic Council Georgia was designated as an "aspirant country".
A Spanish NATO membership referendum was held on Wednesday, 12 March 1986, to gauge support for the country either remaining a member of, or leaving, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which it had joined in 1982. The question asked was "In your view, should Spain continue to be a member of the Atlantic Alliance subject to the terms agreed by the national Government?" (). The referendum resulted in 56.9% of voters voting in favour of remaining within NATO on a turnout of 59.4%.