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Malta and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have a close relationship. Malta is one of four members of the European Union that are not members of NATO, the others being Austria, Cyprus and Ireland. Malta has had formal relations with NATO since 1995, when it joined the Partnership for Peace programme. While it withdrew in 1996, it rejoined as a member in 2008.
NATO member countries Countries in the process of accession Countries promised invitations | Membership is not the goal Countries have not announced their membership intentions |
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. As such, the Crown Colony of Malta shared the UK's international memberships, including NATO. Between 1952 and 1965, the headquarters of the Allied Forces Mediterranean was based in the town of Floriana, just outside Malta's capital of Valletta. When Malta gained independence in 1964, prime minister George Borg Olivier wanted the country to join NATO. Olivier was concerned that the presence of the NATO headquarters in Malta, without the security guarantees that NATO membership entailed, made the country a potential target. However, according to a memorandum he prepared at the time he was discouraged from formally submitting a membership application by Deputy Secretary General of NATO James A. Roberts. It was believed that some NATO members, including the United Kingdom, were opposed to Maltese NATO membership. As a result Olivier considered alternatives, such as seeking associate membership or unilateral security guarantees from NATO, or closing the NATO headquarters in Malta in retaliation. [2] [3] [4] Ultimately, Olivier supported the alliance and signed a defense agreement with the UK for use of Maltese military facilities in exchange for around £2 million a year. [5] [6] This friendly policy changed in 1971, when Dom Mintoff, of the Labour Party, was elected as prime minister. Mintoff supported neutrality as his foreign policy, [7] and the position was later enshrined into the country's constitution in 1974 as an amendment to Article 1. [8] The country joined the Non-Aligned Movement in 1979, at the same time when the British Royal Navy left its base at the Malta Dockyard.
In 1995, under Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami of the Nationalist Party, Malta joined the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council multilateral defense forum and NATO's Partnership for Peace program. When the Labour Party regained power the following year, however, they withdrew Malta from both organizations. Though the Nationalists resumed the majority in parliament in 1998, Malta didn't rejoin the EAPC and PfP programs again until 2008, after the country had joined the European Union in 2004. Since re-joining, Malta has been building its relations with NATO and getting involved in wider projects including the PfP Planning and Review Process and the NATO Science for Peace and Security Program. [9] [10]
NATO membership is not supported by any of the country's political parties, including neither the governing Labour Party nor the opposition Nationalist Party. NATO's secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg has stated that the alliance fully respects Malta's position of neutrality, and put no pressure for the country to join the alliance. [9] Polling done by the island-nation's Ministry of Foreign Affairs found in February 2022 that 63% of those surveyed supported the island's neutrality, and only 6% opposed the policy, with 14% undecided. [11] A Eurobarometer survey in May 2022 found that 75% of Maltese would however support greater military cooperation within the European Union. [12]
| Event | Date |
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| Partnership for Peace | 1995-04-26 (Withdrew 1996-10-27) 2008-04-03 |
NATO relations of other EU member states outside NATO:
The Partnership for Peace is a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) program aimed at creating trust and cooperation between the member states of NATO and other states mostly in Europe, including post-Soviet states; 18 states are members. The program contains 6 areas of cooperation, which aims to build relationships with partners through military-to-military cooperation on training, exercises, disaster planning and response, science and environmental issues, professionalization, policy planning, and relations with civilian government. During policy negotiations in the 1990s, a primary controversy regarding PfP was its ability to be interpreted as a program that is a stepping stone for joining NATO with full Article 5 guarantees.
Edoardo "Eddie" Fenech Adami is a Maltese politician and Nationalist politician who served as the prime minister of Malta from 1987 until 1996, and again from 1998 until 2004. Subsequently, he was the seventh president of Malta from 2004 to 2009. He led his party to win four general elections, in 1987, 1992, 1998 and 2003, as well as the majority of votes in 1981. Staunchly pro-European, Fenech Adami was fundamental for Malta's accession to the European Union.
Lawrence Gonzi is a Maltese politician, retired Nationalist politician and lawyer, who served for twenty-five years in various critical roles in Maltese politics. Gonzi was Prime Minister of Malta from 2004 to 2013, and leader of the Nationalist Party. He also served as speaker of the House from 1988 to 1996, and Minister of Social Policy from 1998 to 2004, as well as deputy prime minister from 1999 to 2004. He served in practically all positions in Parliament, being also Leader of the House, an MP and Leader of the Opposition.
Ireland is one of four members of the European Union that are not members of NATO. The others are Austria, Cyprus and Malta. The country has a longstanding policy of military neutrality: it does not join military alliances or defence pacts, or take part in international conflicts. The nature of Irish neutrality has varied over time. Ireland declared itself a neutral state during the Second World War, and during the Cold War it did not join NATO nor the Non-Aligned Movement. Since the 1970s, some have defined it more broadly to include a commitment to "United Nations peacekeeping, human rights and disarmament". Recent Irish governments have defined it narrowly as non-membership of military defensive alliances. The compatibility of neutrality with Ireland's membership of the European Union has been a point of debate in EU treaty referendum campaigns since the 1990s. The Seville Declarations on the Treaty of Nice acknowledge Ireland's "traditional policy of military neutrality". The Irish Defence Forces have been involved in many UN peacekeeping missions.
Giorgio Borg Olivier was a Maltese statesman and leading politician. He twice served as Prime Minister of Malta as the Leader of the Nationalist Party. He was also Leader of the Opposition between 1955–1958, and again between 1971–1977.
Armenia and the European Union have maintained positive relations over the years. Both parties are connected through the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA), which was signed in 2017. Former Armenian foreign minister Eduard Nalbandyan expressed confidence that the new partnership agreement would "open a new page" in EU–Armenia relations. Meanwhile, the former High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini concluded in June 2019, that Armenia–EU relations are on an "excellent" level. Should either Georgia or Turkey, who are candidates for EU membership, accede to the EU, Armenia will border the European Union.
Georgia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) enjoy cordial relations. Georgia is not currently a member of NATO, but has been promised by NATO to be admitted in the future.
A referendum on European Union membership was held in Malta on 8 March 2003. The result was 54% in favour. The subsequent April 2003 general elections were won by the Nationalist Party, which was in favour of EU membership, the opposition Labour Party having opposed joining. Malta joined the EU on 1 May 2004.
NATO is a military alliance of thirty-two European and North American countries that constitutes a system of collective defense. The process of joining the alliance is governed by Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which allows for the invitation of "other European States" only and by subsequent agreements. Countries wishing to join must meet certain requirements and complete a multi-step process involving political dialogue and military integration. The accession process is overseen by the North Atlantic Council, NATO's governing body. NATO was formed in 1949 with twelve founding members and has added new members ten times. The first additions were Greece and Turkey in 1952. In May 1955, West Germany joined NATO, which was one of the conditions agreed to as part of the end of the country's occupation by France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, prompting the Soviet Union to form its own collective security alliance later that month. Following the end of the Franco regime, newly democratic Spain chose to join NATO in 1982.
Relations between Ukraine and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) started in 1991 following Ukraine's independence after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Ukraine-NATO ties gradually strengthened during the 1990s and 2000s, and Ukraine aimed to eventually join the alliance. Although co-operating with NATO, Ukraine remained a neutral country. After it was attacked by Russia in 2014, Ukraine has increasingly sought NATO membership.
Official relations between Moldova and NATO began in 1992 when Moldova joined the North Atlantic Cooperation Council. However, as Moldova's neutrality is enshrined in its constitution, there are no official plans for Moldova to join the organization.
NATO maintains foreign relations with many non-member countries across the globe. NATO runs a number of programs which provide a framework for the partnerships between itself and these non-member nations, typically based on that country's location. These include the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council and the Partnership for Peace.
Ireland and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have had a formal relationship since 1999, when Ireland joined as a member of the NATO Partnership for Peace (PfP) program and signed up to NATO's Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC). To date, Ireland has not sought to become a member of NATO due to its traditional policy of military neutrality.
Withdrawal from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is the legal and political process whereby a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation withdraws from the North Atlantic Treaty, and thus the country in question ceases to be a member of NATO. The formal process is stated in article 13 of the Treaty. This says that any country that wants to leave must send the United States a "notice of denunciation", which the U.S. would then pass on to the other Allies. After a one-year waiting period, the country that wants to leave would be out.
The European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) are two main treaty-based Western organisations for cooperation between member states, both headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. Their natures are different and they operate in different spheres: NATO is a purely intergovernmental organisation functioning as a military alliance, which serves to implement article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty on collective territorial defence. The EU on the other hand is a partly supranational and partly intergovernmental sui generis entity akin to a confederation that entails wider economic and political integration. Unlike NATO, the EU pursues a foreign policy in its own right—based on consensus, and member states have equipped it with tools in the field of defence and crisis management; the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) structure.
Since 15 January 2015, the relationship between Serbia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has been regulated in the context of an Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP).
The European Union (EU) is an institution of its own kind consisting of member states being part of an alliance as well as military neutral member states while developing a Common Foreign and Security Policy for the union as a whole. The military neutral member states are Austria, Ireland and Malta. Previous military neutral states are Finland and Sweden.
Armenia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have maintained a formal relationship since 1992, when Armenia joined the North Atlantic Cooperation Council. Armenia officially established bilateral relations with NATO in 1994 when it became a member of NATO's Partnership for Peace (PfP) programme. In 2002, Armenia became an Associate Member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.
Sweden has been a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) since 7 March 2024.
Austria and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have a close relationship. Austria with Ireland, Cyprus and Malta are the only members of the European Union that are not members of NATO. Austria has had formal relations with NATO since 1995, when it joined the Partnership for Peace programme.
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