With today’s signing of the accession protocol, Macedonia will get a seat at NATO. This means that the country will take part in all meetings and all of the Alliance’s organs with its status of an “invited country,” but it still won’t be able to vote while the accession process isn’t over.
Macedonia’s accession protocol towards the Washington Agreement will now have to be ratified by 29 NATO members, formally, through a referendum or parliamentary voting to be passed in the country, and in the end, it will have to be submitted to the US Department of State, as an addition to the original document dating from 1949 with which the Northern Alliance was formed.
Starting from today, Macedonia will take part in all meetings with its allies. The first seating on the seat in NATO will be during the ministerial meeting of the ministers of defense of the NATO countries members, that will be held of the 13th and the 14th of February. In April, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nikola Dimitrov will take part in a ministerial meeting in Washington, and in December, Prime Minister Zoran Zaev will attend the meeting of heads of states and governments that will be held in London, the home of NATO’s first headquarters, in order to mark the Alliance’s 70th anniversary.
