BRATISLAVA, April 1, (WEBNOVINY) – By joining NATO, Slovakia not only gained the firmest security guarantees, but also a stable place in the family of democratic countries, stated Defense Minister Lubomir Galko on Friday, on the occasion of a ceremonial gathering of members of the Armed Forces and employees of the Defense Ministry. The expansion of the alliance in 2004, when seven former communist countries including Slovakia joined concerns regarding its possible weakening failed to become reality. “The newcomers have never weakened the alliance’s solidarity”, Galko stressed.
On the occasion of the seven-year anniversary of becoming a NATO member, the minister and The Chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Slovak Republic General Lubomir Bulik awarded several members with memorial awards. The ceremony was attended also by Speaker of Parliament Richard Sulik, and representatives of the government and Parliament.
Slovakia became NATO member exactly seven years ago along with Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. It happened less than one and a half year after obtaining the NATO invitation. The then Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda and prime ministers of the above six countries of the former eastern bloc delivered ratification documents to the Washington Treaty to the U.S. administration as a depository on March 29, 2004. The 19-strong NATO has thus enlarged to 26 members.
NATO enlargement started already in 1999, when the first three post-communist countries, namely the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, joined it. Slovakia’s neighbors obtained the invitation at the Madrid summit in 1997, while Slovakia was not invited to start accession talks since it failed to meet political criteria.
NATO invited the next seven new members, including Slovakia, at the Prague November summit in 2002. Ambassadors of 19 NATO member states signed their accession protocols on March 26, 2003, in Brussels.
Slovakia was the first candidate to ratify joining NATO. It happened on April 10, 2003, when 124 from 136 lawmakers present in the voting voted for the entry in NATO, while eleven were against and one abstained from the voting. Five days after its approval in the parliament, then President Rudolf Schuster signed the accession document.
SITA