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NATO in 2024. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is an international military alliance consisting of 32 member states from Europe and North America. It was established at the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949. Of the 32 member countries, 30 are in Europe and two are in North America.
During the Cold War, NATO used radar facilities in Malta, which, like other non-NATO member European states, has generally cooperative relations with the organization. [269] When the North Atlantic Treaty was signed in 1949, the Mediterranean island of Malta was a dependent territory of the United Kingdom, one of the treaty's original signatories.
Current NATO member states. The following twelve states signed the treaty and thus became the founding members of NATO. The following leaders signed the agreement as plenipotentiaries of their countries in Washington, D.C., on 4 April 1949: [7] [8] Belgium – Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Paul-Henri Spaak and Ambassador Baron Robert ...
During the Cold War, most of Europe was divided between two alliances. Members of NATO are shown in blue, with members of the Warsaw Pact in red and unaffiliated countries are in grey. Yugoslavia, although communist, had left the Soviet sphere in 1948, and Albania was a Warsaw Pact member-only until 1968.
Subsequently, Luxembourg became a founding member state of the European Union (EU) when the EEC and ECSC were incorporated into it in 1993. Luxembourg is a founding member of the Schengen Area , abolishing internal borders amongst its member states, named after the Luxembourg village where the original agreement — since incorporated into EU ...
Iceland and Norway have opted to remain outside of the EU, but do participate in the European Single Market as part of their European Economic Area (EEA) membership. Four non-NATO states are members of the EU: Austria, Cyprus, Ireland, and Malta. Several EU and NATO member states were formerly members of the Warsaw Pact. [3]
Emerging from World War II, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was established by 10 European countries, the United States and Canada to form a bulwark against the communist-ruled Soviet Union.
NATO's "area of responsibility", within which attacks on member states are eligible for an Article 5 response, is defined under Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty to include member territory in Europe, North America, Turkey, and islands in the North Atlantic north of the Tropic of Cancer.