Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council

The Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC), a NATO institution, is a multilateral forum created to improve relations between NATO and non-NATO countries in Europe and those parts of Asia on the European periphery. The member states meet to cooperate and consult on a range of political and security issues. It was formed on May 29, 1997 as the successor to the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC) and works alongside the Partnership for Peace (PfP), both created post-Cold War - the former in 1991, the latter in 1994.

Members

There are 50 members, the 28 NATO member countries and 22 partner countries. The partner countries are:

• 6 countries that (though militarily neutral) possessed capitalist economies during the Cold War:

•  Austria
•  Finland
•  Ireland
•  Malta
•  Sweden
•  Switzerland

• 12 former Soviet republics:

•  Armenia
•  Azerbaijan
•  Belarus
•  Georgia
•  Kazakhstan
•  Kyrgyzstan
•  Moldova
•  Russia
•  Tajikistan
•  Turkmenistan
•  Ukraine
•  Uzbekistan

• 4 of the Former Yugoslav nations on neither side of the Iron Curtain^[1] during the Cold War:

•  Bosnia and Herzegovina
•  Macedonia ^[2]
•  Montenegro
•  Serbia

See also

• OSCE
• ISAF
• UN
• WEU

References

1. ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_curtain Yugoslavia was one of the leaders of the non-aligned countries. Its citizens needed visas for east not west, so it counts as being on the left side of the Iron Curtain
2. ^ EAPC partner state as the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

External links

• Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council
• History of NATO – the Atlantic Alliance - UK Government site
• EAPC Security Forum 2007 in Ohrid, Macedonia