Fifteen years ago, Croatia became a member of NATO, achieving one of its most important national goals after gaining independence and international recognition in the 1990s.

Croatia’s official accession was marked on 1 April 2009 by the deposit of Croatia’s instrument of ratification for accession to the North Atlantic Treaty with the US State Department, as the US is the depositary of the North Atlantic Treaty. The instruments of ratification were officially handed over by the then Croatian Ambassador to the USA, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic.

Croatia and Albania were jointly admitted to the Alliance as the 28th and 29th member states.

Following the ratification of the accession protocol in the parliaments of the member states and in the Croatian parliament on 25 March 2009, the then NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer sent Croatia an official invitation to join the Alliance on 30 March of the same year.

Institutional relations between Croatia and NATO were established in 2000 through the Partnership for Peace (PfP) programme and preparations for membership were initiated in 2002 with the Membership Action Plan (MAP).

The political decision to invite Croatia and Albania was taken at the Bucharest Summit in April 2008. The decision was brought to Zagreb from the Romanian capital by then US President George Bush.

In his speech on St Mark’s Square in Zagreb on 5 April 2008, President Bush promised that no one would be able to deprive Croatia of its freedom.

2008 Initiative to hold a referendum on NATO membership fails

in 2008, an initiative was launched to hold a referendum on Croatia’s accession to the Alliance. The spokesman of the initiative committee for the referendum, Aleksandar Hatzivelkos, said at the time that they wanted to collect 10% of the signatures of all eligible voters in order to force the parliament to call a referendum in accordance with the constitution.

The members of the NATO referendum committee said that they were neither for nor against Croatia’s accession, but emphasised that they believed that citizens had the right to express their opinion on the matter in a referendum.

The petition for the referendum was signed on 2 April 2008 by the then opposition leader and chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Zoran Milanovic. He said at the time that his party was in favour of Croatia joining NATO, but that it also believed that politicians and citizens should make this important and far-reaching decision together.

However, the petition was not supported by the required number of signatures and the initiative failed.

According to the latest opinion poll conducted by NATO in its member states in the last two months of 2023, 72% of Croats would vote in favour of their country’s continued NATO membership if a referendum on the issue were held.

The inclusion of Croatia in NATO missions

Even before officially joining the Alliance, Croatia had already begun to participate in NATO-led operations and missions. Croatian troops were involved in the ISAF operation in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2015 and in the NATO-led Resolute Support Mission (RSM) from 2015 to 2020.

Croatian contingents are participating in the NATO-led missions in Kosovo (KFOR) and in the NATO Enhanced Forward Presence (eFP) in Poland and Lithuania as well as in the NATO Enhanced Vigilance Activity in Hungary. Two Croatian officers are also deployed in Iraq.

Until May 2023, the Croatian Navy was involved in the NATO-led Operation Sea Guardian in the Mediterranean.

Croatia spent 1.75% of its GDP on defence in 2023

Croatia is one of the NATO member states that has still not reached the set target of 2% of GDP for defence spending. According to an estimate for 2023, the country spent 1.75% of its GDP on defence that year.

Croatia came closest to the 2% allocation in 2021, when it paid the highest rate for the purchase of the Rafale fighter jets, which amounted to 1.97% of its GDP. In 2022, the allocation dropped to 1.79%.

The NATO Secretary General recently published the 2023 Military Expenditure Report with details of member states’ defence allocations.

The year 2023 was the ninth consecutive year in which member states increased their overall defence budgets, by a record 11%.

In the period between 2014 and 2023, Croatia increased its defence budget from 892 to 1.136 billion US dollars in 2015 prices, an increase of 27.5%.

In 2014, Croatian defence spending per capita was USD 210, and in 2023 it will have reached USD 291.

In terms of the structure of defence spending, Croatia meets the target of spending at least 20% of the defence budget on equipment. According to the estimate for 2023, Croatia spent 23.9% of its defence budget on equipment procurement. Poland spent the most on this purpose with 53.9%, followed by Finland with 50.8%.

The Alliance celebrates its 75th anniversary

The 15th anniversary of Croatia’s accession coincides with the 75th anniversary of the founding of NATO. On 4 April 1949, the Secretaries of State for Foreign Affairs of the United States and Canada and the Foreign Ministers of 10 European countries – Belgium, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and the United Kingdom – signed the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington, thus becoming the founding members of NATO.

The first round of enlargement took place in 1952 with the admission of Greece and Turkey. in 1955, the West Germans followed their example. Spain joined the alliance in 1982.

After the end of the Cold War, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland joined the Alliance in 1999, the first from the former Warsaw Pact.

In 2004, the Alliance accepted seven new members: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

After the Alliance admitted Croatia and Albania in 2009, the next round of enlargement followed in 2017 with the accession of Montenegro and North Macedonia in 2020.

The newest members are Finland (2023) and Sweden (2024), which applied for membership when Russia, under the leadership of President Vladimir Putin, launched a war of aggression against Ukraine.

Article 5

The most important section of the treaty is Article 5 with its commitment clause, which defines the casus foederis.

Article 5 obliges each Member State to regard an armed attack against one Member State in the territories defined in Article 6 as an armed attack against all Member States. In the event of such an attack, each Member State must assist by taking “such measures as it considers necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”

In terms of per capita allocations, Croatia spent USD 210 per capita on defence in 2014 (in 2015 prices) and the amount is expected to reach USD 291 in 2023.