Clinton Affirms NATO Open-door Membership Policy

WASHINGTON, May 21, 2012 — Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Rod­ham Clin­ton said at NATO’s sum­mit in Chica­go today that mem­ber nations are com­mit­ted to the organization’s open-door mem­ber­ship pol­i­cy, which she called a “pow­er­ful moti­va­tion” for coun­tries wish­ing to join the alliance.

Speak­ing at a meet­ing of NATO’s deci­sion-mak­ing body, the North Atlantic Coun­cil, Clin­ton said the prospect of gain­ing mem­ber­ship in the alliance spurs coun­tries to “imple­ment dif­fi­cult but nec­es­sary reforms, resolve inter­nal dif­fer­ences as well as dif­fer­ences with their neigh­bors, and con­tribute to secu­ri­ty oper­a­tions that ben­e­fit them­selves and all of us.” 

The open-door pol­i­cy has pro­duced some of the alliance’s most active and com­mit­ted mem­bers, she said, and has helped to pro­mote sta­bil­i­ty and coop­er­a­tion in cen­tral and east­ern Europe. 

Accord­ing to NATO agree­ments, the alliance is open to any Euro­pean coun­try able to meet the com­mit­ments and oblig­a­tions of mem­ber­ship and con­tribute to secu­ri­ty in the Euro-Atlantic area. 

Since 1949, NATO’s mem­ber­ship has increased from 12 to 28 coun­tries through six rounds of enlarge­ment. Alba­nia and Croa­t­ia, which were invit­ed to join NATO at the alliance’s April 2008 sum­mit in Bucharest, Roma­nia, for­mal­ly became mem­bers April 1, 2009. 

Geor­gia is advanc­ing toward NATO mem­ber­ship, and Mace­do­nia, Mon­tene­gro and Bosnia and Herze­gov­ina are also work­ing to become alliance members. 

Clin­ton said the Unit­ed States is deeply com­mit­ted to NATO’s open-door pol­i­cy. “It is in that spir­it that we wel­come our aspi­rant nations here today,” she said. 

“We will keep work­ing with each of them, both bilat­er­al­ly and through NATO, to help them imple­ment final­ly the reforms need­ed to meet the stan­dards for mem­ber­ship,” she added. “As I said yes­ter­day, I believe this sum­mit should be the last sum­mit that is not an enlarge­ment summit.” 

Clin­ton said NATO looks to aspir­ing mem­ber nations to demon­strate that they share NATO’s val­ues and =are will­ing and able to meet the stan­dards for mem­ber­ship. “And we promise to help them as they do so because this is in our inter­est,” she added. 

Gain­ing mem­ber­ship can be a lengthy and chal­leng­ing process, Clin­ton acknowledged. 

“We need to stick with it and remem­ber our ulti­mate goal: a stronger, more durable, more effec­tive NATO,” she said, adding that enlarge­ment of the alliance, done right, is a core ele­ment of NATO’s pur­pose and its community. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

Team GlobDef

Seit 2001 ist GlobalDefence.net im Internet unterwegs, um mit eigenen Analysen, interessanten Kooperationen und umfassenden Informationen für einen spannenden Überblick der Weltlage zu sorgen. GlobalDefence.net war dabei die erste deutschsprachige Internetseite, die mit dem Schwerpunkt Sicherheitspolitik außerhalb von Hochschulen oder Instituten aufgetreten ist.

Alle Beiträge ansehen von Team GlobDef →