The 1997 Madrid summit was a meeting of the

heads of state A head of state is the public persona of a sovereign state.#Foakes, Foakes, pp. 110–11 "

he head of state He or HE may refer to: Language * He (letter), the fifth letter of the Semitic abjads * He (pronoun), a pronoun in Modern English * He (kana), one of the Japanese kana (へ in hiragana and ヘ in katakana) * Ge (Cyrillic), a Cyrillic letter cal ...

being an embodiment of the State itself or representative of its international persona." The name given to the office of head of sta ...

and

heads of government In the executive branch, the head of government is the highest or the second-highest official of a sovereign state, a federated state, or a self-governing colony, autonomous region, or other government who often presides over a cabinet, a ...

of the sixteen members of the

North Atlantic Treaty Organization The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental transnational military alliance of 32 member states—30 European and 2 North American. Established in the aftermat ...

(NATO) and their partner countries held in

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

, Spain, on 8–9 July 1997. It was the 15th

NATO summit A NATO summit is a summit (meeting), summit meeting that is regarded as a periodic opportunity for head of state, heads of state and head of government, heads of government of NATO member countries to evaluate and provide strategic direction ...

and the second in 1997, the previous one being held in Paris. The summit was notable for inviting three new members, Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic to join the alliance.

Summit

Venue

The summit was held at the pavilions of the

IFEMA IFEMA (short for ''Institución Ferial de Madrid; "''Fair Institution of Madrid") is an entity charged with the organisation of fairs, halls and congresses in their facilities in Madrid. It is a consortium partnered by the City Council of Madrid, ...

fairgrounds. The government of Spain allocated 1.3 billion pesetas (€7.8 million) for the development of the summit.

NATO Enlargement

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 The Visegrád Group (also known as the Visegrád Four or the V4) is a cultural and political alliance of four Central European countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. The alliance aims to advance co-operation in military, e ...

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 William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...

, and even an "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 US$10 billion, which participants worried could lead to the treaty recognizing the new members being rejected by the Republican-held

U.S. Senate The United States Senate is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and House have the authority under Article One of the ...

Distinctive Partnership

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 Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes known as Bosnia-Herzegovina and informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeast Europe. Situated on the Balkan Peninsula, it borders Serbia to the east, Montenegro to the southeast, and Croatia to the north a ...

was read and signed by participants.

Participants

The official meetings were led by NATO Secretary General

Javier Solana Francisco Javier Solana de Madariaga CYC (; born 14 July 1942) is a Spanish physicist and PSOE politician. After serving in the Spanish government as Foreign Affairs Minister under Felipe González (1992–1995) and as the Secretary Gener ...

. One notable absence from the summit was

Boris Yeltsin Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician and statesman who served as President of Russia from 1991 to 1999. He was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) from 1961 to ...

, President of Russia, which was instead represented by lower level bureaucrats. Defense

Other events

On the evening of 8 July 1997,

King King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

Juan Carlos I Juan Carlos I (; Juan Carlos Alfonso Víctor María de Borbón y Borbón-Dos Sicilias, born 5 January 1938) is a member of the Spanish royal family who reigned as King of Spain from 22 November 1975 until Abdication of Juan Carlos I, his abdic ...

and Queen Sofía welcomed the heads of State, of Government, of Delegations and their companions at the Royal Palace, where they hosted a state dinner.

References

External links

Official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Madrid summit 1997 1997 Madrid summit 1997 in politics Diplomatic conferences in Spain 20th-century diplomatic conferences 1997 in international relations 1997 conferences Spain and NATO July 1997 in Europe