NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, will join the Prime Minister of Montenegro, Duško Marković, and US Under Secretary for Political Affairs, Tom Shannon,
A ceremony will take place at the State Department for the Deposit of Montenegro’s Instrument of Accession to NATO, formally triggering Montenegro’s membership in the Alliance.
That evening, the Secretary General will attend the Atlantic Council Distinguished Leadership Awards in Washington DC, where he will be honoured for his transatlantic international leadership.
The event will be streamed live on http://bit.ly/2qN0LxM.
Mr. Stoltenberg will meet with the Members of Congress, including Members of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
A formal invitation was issued by the alliance in December 2015, beginning the final accession talks. In February 2016, final accession talks began and concluded in May, allowing Montenegro to take an “observer” status pending ratification by the governments of the other members, as well as by Montenegro’s own parliament.
Ratification by each member state had been finished to be completed by the second quarter of 2017 and was with Spain’s on the 10th of May. The United States Senate voted on the Resolution of Ratification on the 28th of March 2017. President Donald Trump signed a presidential memorandum on 11 April 2017.
Oh great. Another weak NATO member that we are going to be asked to protect. Any chance they spend 2% or more on defence? What actual defence capability do we gain from Montenegro?
sorry to be brutal, probably just asking what everyone else is thinking.
Just checked Montenegro’s defence expenditure was 50 million Euros = 1.56 % defence to gdp.
They have 1600 fulltime professional armed forces personnel and 400 reserves. Out of a total population of 630,000 citizens. No offence to them but they do not appear to offer much defensive forces to NATO alliance and are not spending enough on defence.