Alliance Open to New Members: After Sweden, Bosnia and Herzegovina is Next

(Patria) - Following Sweden's entry into NATO, the Alliance is open to three partner countries becoming new members - BiH, Georgia, and Ukraine, it was stated on NATO's website in a post last Friday, writes Nezavisne novine.

In addition to this official statement from the Alliance, it should be added that NATO considers BiH to be in the Membership Action Plan, which in BiH is called the Reform Program, while the other two candidate countries still do not have this program, although Ukraine strongly desires it.

NATO says its doors are open to any other European country that is in a position to commit to the obligations that membership entails, as well as to contribute to security in the Euro-Atlantic area.

After the end of the Cold War, the Alliance commissioned a study on the prospects of NATO expansion to the countries of the former Eastern Bloc.

As stated by NATO, the Alliance published the results of this study in 1995, which examined the benefits of admitting new members and how to implement accession.

"It was concluded that the end of the Cold War is a unique opportunity to build improved security throughout the Euro-Atlantic area and that NATO expansion would contribute to greater stability and security for all," they stated.

Conditions for membership include supporting and implementing democratic reforms, including establishing civilian and democratic control over the armed forces, demonstrating the ability to consult and build consensus among Alliance members, and promoting good neighborly relations.

"This would increase transparency in defense planning and military budgets, thereby strengthening trust among states and reinforcing the overall trend towards closer integration and cooperation in Europe.

The study also concluded that expansion would strengthen the Alliance's ability to contribute to European and international security and strengthen and expand the transatlantic partnership," they emphasized.

Although much more has been said about admitting new members since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the open-door policy has been stipulated since the Alliance's founding in 1949, under Article X of the Washington Treaty.

This article states that membership is open to "any European state in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area".

From 1952 to the present, 10 rounds of enlargement have been carried out, and the last round of enlargement occurred last year and this year, when the previously neutral countries Finland and Sweden, which became a member last week, were admitted to membership.

Incidentally, it is interesting that Sweden is a historically neutral country, while Finland's neutrality was imposed by an informal agreement between the two blocs at the end of World War II.

After the start of the war in Ukraine, neutral Sweden concluded that it was in its national interest to abandon its centuries-old policy of neutrality.

Admitting a country to membership involves six steps, and the prerequisite is that the country expresses a democratically supported interest in becoming a member.

After that, NATO and the country wishing to join begin negotiations, and in the second step, the country sends a formal letter, plan, and timeline of reforms it intends to implement.

NATO then prepares accession protocols to the Washington Treaty. These protocols are in fact amendments or additions to the treaty, which, after being signed and ratified by the allies, become an integral part of the treaty itself and allow invited countries to become parties to that treaty.

Member states then ratify the protocols and carry out the necessary procedures in their national parliaments and notify the US Government as the depository of NATO protocols. After this step, the country can be invited by the Secretary General of the Alliance to join.

Although in Republika Srpska the majority of citizens are still against membership in the Alliance, according to a survey commissioned by the Atlantic Initiative, there has been some progress, and almost a third of citizens are open to approaching the largest military bloc in the world, writes Nezavisne novine.