Skopje, 27 March 2025 (MIA) – The Republic of North Macedonia marks Thursday five years since joining NATO. By becoming the Alliance’s 30th member on March 27, 2020, the country fulfilled one of its strategic goals – NATO and EU membership - defined in a resolution passed in Parliament in 1993.

On November 15, 1995, the country signed a framework agreement on joining the Partnership for Peace program. The then Republic of Macedonia at a 1999 NATO Summit in Washington gained a NATO membership candidate status, which kickstarted the implementation of the Membership Action Plan.

NATO in its final declaration at the Bucharest Summit in 2008 concluded the country should be invited to join the Alliance once it settles the name dispute with Greece.

Since then, all NATO summit declarations (Lisbon 2010, Chicago 2012, Wales 2014 and Warsaw 2016) reiterated that NATO will invite Skopje to join after a mutually acceptable name solution is reached under the auspices of the UN.

At the NATO Summit in Brussels in July 2018, the heads of state and government at a North Atlantic Council meeting decided to invite the country to start accession talks with the Alliance after agreeing to change its name into North Macedonia according to the Prespa Agreement, signed with Greece on June 17, 2018.

The country successfully concluded the accession talks with NATO on October 18-19, 2018.

On February 6, 2019, officials from 29 NATO members at the Alliance HQ in Brussels signed the accession protocol for the NATO membership of North Macedonia at a ceremony attended by the then NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and former foreign minister Nikola Dimitrov.

Following the Brussels ceremony, the procedure to ratify the accession protocol by all 29 NATO members was launched. It was concluded in March 2020 when the Spanish ambassador in Washington handed over the ratification instrument of the Washington Treaty, thus completing the third and final stage of the accession process.

In a bid to ensure the country’s NATO integration process, Parliament on February 11, 2020 ratified the North Atlantic Treaty. On March 20, 2020, the ratification instrument of the NATO membership accession protocol was signed by the President.

On March 27, 2020, the accession instrument for the North Atlantic Treaty was deposited at the U.S. Department of State through the Macedonian embassy in Washington, making North Macedonia officially the 30th member of the Alliance.

MIA file photo