Accession of Macedonia to NATO
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.
1997 Madrid summit
The topic of enlargement was the main focus of the summit. The result of the summit was that Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic were invited to join NATO. Fellow Visegrád Group member Slovakia was excluded from this invitation. Slovakia had held a referendum on NATO membership in May 1997, but turnout in the referendum failed to achieve the required 50% of eligible voters and government sabotage was blamed, which in turn was viewed as one of a string of undemocratic measures taken by Prime Minister Vladimír Mečiar. A majority of NATO members reportedly supported France's proposal to also immediately invite Romania and Slovenia as members, but this was strongly opposed by U.S. President Bill Clinton, and even a "iron-clad guarantee" that they could be invited in two years time was watered-down in favor of an "open door" policy for new potential members. A main concern for the United States was the cost of potentially raising the military standards of the new Eastern European members. Estimates put this cost at as much as $10 billion USD, which participants worried could lead to the treaty recognizing the new members being rejected by the Republican-held U.S. Senate. Additionally, a "Charter on a Distinctive Partnership" was signed between NATO and Ukraine, creating the NATO-Ukraine Commission and establishing relations between the two, and a declaration supporting peace efforts in Bosnia-Herzegovina was read and signed by participants.