RADIO FREE EUROPE/ RADIO LIBERTY

A NATO summit was held in Prague in November 2002 for the purpose of inviting new countries to join the alliance. While NATO decided which of the candidates -- Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia -- would be asked to join, analysts and diplomats spoke mostly about two possible expansions of the alliance: a five-country enlargement that would include the three Baltic states plus Slovenia and Slovakia, or a so-called seven-out-of-seven expansion, which would enlarge that group with Bulgaria and Romania. The Vilnus Group, an informal grouping that includes the candidate countries and Croatia, said that an enlarged alliance would be more effective in fighting global terrorism and would benefit Europe's security. The United States -- whose opinion has decisive influence within the alliance -- was said to favor a large-scale expansion. This is the first NATO expansion since 1999, when the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland joined the alliance.

The Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland became the first states of the former Warsaw Pact to be inducted as new members of NATO, a process begun in Madrid in 1997.