NATO Enlargement and the Bucharest Summit

This hearing was chaired by Commissioner Alcee L. Hastings and attended by commissioners Ben Cardin and Mike McIntyre. Witnesses included Dr. Michael Haltzel, senior fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University; Janusz Bugajski, director of the New European Democracies Project and senior fellow of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Europe Program; and Steven Pifer, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine and Senior Advisor at CSIS's Russia and Eurasia Program Center.

The hearing focused on the possible inclusion of Albania, Croatia, and Macedonia in the upcoming NATO Summit in Bucharest, Romania. It also discussed extending Membership Action Plans to Ukraine and Georgia. More broadly, the hearing focused on the degree to which these states had transformed their policies and institutions in order to join NATO.