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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.
All members have militaries, except for Iceland, which does not have a typical army (but it does have a coast guard and a small unit of civilian specialists for NATO operations). Three of NATO's members are nuclear weapons states: France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. NATO has 12 original founding member states.
The group brought together neutral countries of Austria, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland on one, and non-aligned SFR Yugoslavia, Cyprus and Malta on the other hand, all of which together shared interest in preservation of their independent non-bloc position with regard to NATO, European Community, Warsaw Pact and the Council for Mutual Economic ...
In 1955, Austria issued its Declaration of Neutrality, meaning that it would never join a military alliance. The Austrian Armed Forces' main purpose since then has been the protection of Austria's neutrality. Its relationship with NATO is limited to the Partnership for Peace programme. [5]
NATO member states agreed to establish four additional battlegroups in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia, [47] and elements of the NATO Response Force were activated for the first time in NATO's history. [52] As of June 2022, NATO had deployed 40,000 troops along its 2,500-kilometre-long (1,550 mi) Eastern flank to deter Russian aggression.
Cyprus is the only EU member state that is neither a NATO member state nor a member of the PfP program. The Parliament of Cyprus voted in February 2011 to apply for membership in the program, but President Demetris Christofias vetoed the decision, arguing that it would hamper his attempts to negotiate an end to the Cyprus dispute and demilitarize the island.
The major parties SPÖ and ÖVP have contrary opinions about the future status of Austria's military nonalignment: While the SPÖ in public supports a neutral role, the ÖVP argues for stronger integration into the EU's security policy; even a future NATO membership is not ruled out by some ÖVP politicians (ex. Werner Fasslabend (ÖVP) in 1997).
NATO's members signed North Macedonia's accession protocol on 6 February 2019. [83] Most countries ratified the accession treaty in 2019, with Spain ratifying its accession protocol in March 2020. [84] The Sobranie also ratified the treaty unanimously on 11 February 2020, [85] before North Macedonia became a NATO member state on 27 March 2020 ...