The North Atlantic Treaty Organization*

Membership went on expanding with the accession of seven more Eastern European countries to NATO: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania, which were first invited to start talks of membership during the 2002 Prague Summit. They finally joined NATO on 29 March 2004, attending their first NATO meeting on the following month, and bringing NATO's membership to its current extent. In addition, a number of other countries, also express the wish to join the alliance, including Albania, the Republic of Macedonia, and Croatia.