- published: 04 Sep 2014
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A NATO summit is a summit meeting that is regarded as a periodic opportunity for Heads of State and Heads of Government of NATO member countries to evaluate and provide strategic direction for Alliance activities.
NATO summits are not regular meetings like the more frequent NATO ministerial meetings, but rather are important junctures in the alliance's decision-making process on the highest level. Summits are often used to introduce new policy, invite new members into the alliance, launch major new initiatives, and build partnerships with non-NATO countries.
From the founding of NATO in 1949, there have been a total of twenty-six NATO summits; the last of which was the 2014 Newport summit held in September 2014. Only the traditional summits have received an official number, thereby excluding the exceptional summit of 2001 in NATO headquarters. The next NATO summit will take place in Warsaw, Poland in July 2016.
Source: NATO, Summits & Ministerial Meetings
Coordinates: 50°52′34″N 4°25′19″E / 50.87611°N 4.42194°E / 50.87611; 4.42194
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO /ˈneɪtoʊ/; French: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique Nord; OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party. NATO's headquarters are located in Haren, Brussels, Belgium, where the Supreme Allied Commander also resides. Belgium is one of the 28 member states across North America and Europe, the newest of which, Albania and Croatia, joined in April 2009. An additional 22 countries participate in NATO's Partnership for Peace program, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programmes. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70 percent of the global total. Members' defense spending is supposed to amount to 2 percent of GDP.