Skopje, 27 March 2024 (MIA) – A central ceremony marking four years since North Macedonia's NATO membership will be held Wednesday on the plateau in front of the Ministry of Defence, also honoring General Staff Day.

First Deputy Prime Minister for European Affairs, Bojan Marichikj, Defence Minister Slavjanka Petrovska, and the Director of the Army General Staff, Brigadier General Simeon Trajkovski, will address the event. The Army Guard will perform drill and two commemorative postage stamps marking four years of NATO membership and the 75th anniversary of the Alliance's founding will be unveiled.

Ahead of the central ceremony, a traditional event with the diplomatic corps will take place at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This marks the commencement of NATO Days in the country, scheduled to run until April 4.

The government held Tuesday a session marking the fourth anniversary of North Macedonia's membership in NATO.
On March 27, 2020, North Macedonia became the thirtieth member of the Alliance, 27 years after the Parliament unanimously adopted a Resolution defining NATO and EU membership as the country’s foreign policy priorities.

In 1995, the country joined the Partnership for Peace. It then began taking part in various NATO missions, including the International Security Assistance Force and the Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan.

At the 2008 Bucharest summit, Greece vetoed the country's invitation to join; however, NATO member states agreed that the country would receive an invitation upon resolution of the Macedonia naming dispute.

Following an agreement in June 2018 to rename the country, representatives of NATO member states signed a protocol on the accession of North Macedonia to NATO on 6 February 2019. Over the next thirteen months, all of NATO's 29 member states ratified the protocol. The accession protocol entered into force on 19 March 2020, allowing North Macedonia to deposit its instrument of accession and thereby become NATO's 30th member state on 27 March 2020.

Photo: MIA archive