NATO ENLARGEMENT
135. Last year the Committee undertook an inquiry
into the enlargement of NATO announced at the Alliance's 1997
Madrid Summit. We looked at the context of enlargement; the possible
effects on NATO as a whole; and the financial costs of the Alliance's
invitations to the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. We took
oral evidence from the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office and, uniquely, members of the governments of Hungary and
Poland; we also received written evidence from many and varied
sources and visited NATO HQ in Brussels. It is not our intention
to rehearse the arguments that we made in our Report[254]
here, but to examine further developments in this area since we
reported in March 1998 and to draw wider conclusions about the
future of NATO.
136. This is not the Alliance's first enlargement:
Greece and Turkey joined in 1952, the Federal Republic of Germany
in 1955, and Spain in 1982. However, the current redrawing of
NATO's boundaries to include former members of the Warsaw Treaty
Organisation is of an entirely different order. As our previous
Report outlined, there had been opposition to the current round
of enlargement on several grounds: political (that invitations
to Russia's former allies were several steps too far for that
country), military (that the invitees' militaries were underdeveloped
and underfunded) and economic (that the costs of enlargement to
fall to current members were too high). However, at the Madrid
Summit in 1997 those who were pro-enlargement prevailed, and NATO
committed itself not only to this, but also to further rounds
of enlargement. We were among those who welcomed this, concluding
in our Report that the possibility of full membership of NATO
had led to real improvements in the security of Europe—
... the incentive to improve the structure and control
of the military, to enhance democracy and to resolve border disputes
and internal problems with ethnic minorities ... would not have
been as strong without the possibility of full membership of NATO;[255]
and, while recognising the misgivings that Russia
had on enlargement, we endorsed the choice of invitees, stating
that—
... none of the three countries invited to accede
to NATO was an inappropriate choice.[256]
With regard to NATO's 'open door' policy, however,
we judged that—
... we should approach any further enlargement with
caution.[257]
254 Third Report, Session 1997-98, NATO Enlargement,
HC 469 Back
255 ibid,
para 33 Back
256 ibid,
para 98 Back
257 ibid,
para 108 Back
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