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.
Economics of defense
At the Prague Summit 2002, with the 9/11 terror attack not in the distant past and the enlargement of NATO into Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia), member states agreed the need to strengthen the alliances ability to deal with a wide range of new threats. After this submit members countries committed to establishing a minimum level of acceptable defense spending of 2% of annual GDP. As of 2016 figures, only five member states (United States of America, Estonia, United Kingdom, Poland and Greece) have reached this figure .