NATO summit meetings provide periodic opportunities for the Heads of State and Government of NATO member countries to discuss important issues facing the Alliance and provide strategic direction for its activities. The last NATO summit was held in in Washington, D.C. on 9-11 July 2024. The next will be held in The Hague, the Netherlands on 24-26 June 2025.
- Summit meetings are often held at key moments in the Alliance’s evolution. They are not regular meetings, but important junctures in the Alliance’s decision-making process.
- Summits are used, for instance, to introduce new policy, invite new members into the Alliance, launch major initiatives and reinforce partnerships.
- They are meetings of the North Atlantic Council at its highest level possible – that of Heads of State and Government.
- NATO summits are always held in a NATO member country and are chaired by the NATO Secretary General.
- The last NATO summit was in July 2024 in Washington, D.C. and marked NATO’s 75th anniversary. The next will be in June 2025 in The Hague, the Netherlands. See the full list of NATO summits below.
Summit meeting agendas
NATO summit meetings are effectively meetings of the North Atlantic Council (NAC) – the Alliance’s principal political decision-making body – at its highest level, that of Heads of State and Government.
Due to the political significance of summit meetings, agenda items typically address issues of overarching political or strategic importance. Items can relate to the internal functioning of the Alliance as well as NATO’s relations with external partners.
Major decisions
Many of NATO’s summit meetings were milestones in the evolution of the Alliance. For instance, the first post-Cold War summit was held in London, in 1990, and outlined proposals for developing relations with Central and Eastern European countries. A year later, in Rome, NATO Heads of State and Government published a Strategic Concept that reflected the new security environment. This was the first time ever that a NATO Strategic Concept was issued as a public document. At the same summit, NATO established the North Atlantic Cooperation Council – a forum that officially brought together NATO and partner countries from Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus.
The 1997 Madrid and Paris Summits invited the first countries of the former Warsaw Pact – Czechia, Hungary and Poland – to join NATO, and established partnerships between NATO and Russia and Ukraine, while the 2002 Prague Summit saw major commitments to improving NATO’s capabilities and transformed the military command structure.
More recently, since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, NATO has held five major summits: an extraordinary virtual summit the next day, an extraordinary summit at NATO Headquarters in Brussels one month later, the 2022 Madrid Summit, the 2023 Vilnius Summit and the 2024 Washington Summit. At these summits, NATO Leaders have reaffirmed their unwavering solidarity with Ukraine and coordinated security assistance to help Ukraine defend itself. They have also undertaken the biggest reinforcement of the Alliance’s collective defence since the Cold War, strengthening NATO’s deterrence and defence posture against all threats and challenges.
Implementation of summit decisions
Typically, the decisions taken at a summit meeting are issued in declarations and communiqués. These are public documents that explain the Alliance’s decisions and reaffirm Allies’ support for NATO policies. The summit declarations and communiqués are linked below for each NATO summit.
The decisions are then translated into action by the relevant actors within NATO, according to the area of competency and responsibility: the NAC’s subordinate committees and NATO’s command structure, which cover the whole range of the Organization’s functions and activities.
Timing and location
Timing
Summits are convened upon approval by the NAC at the level of Permanent Representatives (or Ambassadors) or Foreign and Defence Ministers. They are usually called on an ad-hoc basis, as required by the evolving political and security situation.
From the founding of NATO in 1949 until the end of the Cold War – over 40 years – there were 10 summit meetings. Since 1990, their frequency has increased considerably in order to address the changes brought on by the new security challenges.
Extraordinary summits
Although they do not follow a regular or set schedule, NATO summits are normally planned far in advance. Under exceptional circumstances, however, the Alliance has at times applied exceptional measures. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which started on 24 February 2022, NATO Leaders held an extraordinary virtual summit on 25 February, hosted via secure videoconference by the NATO Secretary General from NATO Headquarters in Brussels. This was shortly followed by an extraordinary in-person summit meeting on 24 March, where NATO Heads of State and Government met to address the consequences of Russia’s war on Ukraine and take measures to further strengthen NATO’s deterrence and defence.
In addition to full NATO summits, a number of “Leaders’ Meetings” or “Special Meetings” have taken place. These meetings involved the participation of NATO Heads of State and Government, but they are not considered as official NATO summits. These include:
- the celebration of NATO’s 70th anniversary (London, December 2019);
- the inauguration of the new NATO Headquarters (Brussels, May 2017); and
- the visit of the newly elected President of the United States (Brussels, June 2001).
Location
NATO summit meetings are held in one of the member countries (including at NATO Headquarters in Belgium). Members volunteer to host a summit meeting and, after evaluating all offers, the NAC makes the final decision concerning the location.
In recent times, summit locations have held some thematic significance. For example, the summits held in Washington, D.C. in 1999 and 2024 commemorated the 50th and 75th anniversaries of the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty in that city. Istanbul – which hosted a summit meeting in 2004 – connects Europe and Asia and is where the Alliance launched the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative. This initiative is intended to foster linkages between NATO and the broader Middle East.
Participation
NATO summits normally involve member countries only. However, on occasion, and provided Allies agree, meetings can be convened in other formats. They include, for instance, meetings of Defence Ministers and Foreign Ministers or meetings of Heads of State and Government from partner countries (for example, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy joined Allied Leaders for sessions of the NATO-Ukraine Council at the 2023 Vilnius Summit and 2024 Washington Summit). They can also include leaders from countries contributing troops to a NATO-led operation (as was the case at the 2010 Lisbon Summit for countries contributing troops to NATO’s ISAF mission in Afghanistan) or top representatives from international organisations such as the United Nations, the European Union or the World Bank.
Organising and holding these events
NATO summits are centred on the activities of the North Atlantic Council (NAC or Council). As with all NAC meetings, the Secretary General chairs them and plays an important role in coordination and deliberations to help members reach consensus on the issues at hand.
As with meetings at the levels of Permanent Representatives and Foreign and Defence Ministers, the work of the NAC is prepared by subordinate committees with responsibility for specific areas of policy. The Deputies Committee, which consists of Deputy Permanent Representatives, is responsible for drafting declarations and communiqués after meetings of Heads of State and Government, as well as Foreign and Defence Ministers.
Other aspects of political work may be handled by the Political Committee and the Partnerships and Cooperative Security Committee. Depending on the topic under discussion, the respective senior committee with responsibility for the subject assumes the lead role in preparing Council meetings and following up on Council decisions.
Support to the Council is provided by the Secretary of the Council, who is also Director of the ministerial and summit meeting task forces. The Secretary of the Council ensures that NAC mandates are executed and its decisions recorded and circulated. The Council Secretariat ensures the bureaucratic and logistical aspects of the Council’s work, while the relevant divisions of the International Staff support the work of committees reporting to the NAC.
Previous summit meetings
The first time that Heads of State and Government from NATO countries met was at the actual signing ceremony of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949, but this was not a summit meeting. The first summit meeting was held eight years later, in Paris in 1957. Subsequent summits have since occurred at key junctures in the history of the Alliance. Below, all official NATO summits are listed in reverse chronological order.
Washington D.C., 9-11 July 2024
Allied Leaders met in Washington, D.C. – the city where the North Atlantic Treaty was signed in 1949 – to commemorate NATO’s 75th anniversary. The landmark summit had three main focuses: strengthening NATO’s deterrence and defence, bolstering long-term support to Ukraine, and deepening NATO’s partnerships. On the first point, Allies reaffirmed their commitment to investing 2% of Gross Domestic Product in defence (noting that two thirds of Allies have reached that threshold) and pledged to expand their defence industrial capacity to urgently deliver the most critical capabilities. They welcomed the progress made since the Madrid and Vilnius Summits on reinforcing and modernising NATO for a new era of collective defence, and agreed to further enhance NATO’s Integrated Air and Missile Defence with new ballistic missile defence assets, and boost NATO’s cyber defence with a new NATO Integrated Cyber Defence Centre. On Ukraine, Allies reaffirmed that they will continue to support Ukraine on its irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership. Allies agreed to establish NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU) to coordinate the provision of military equipment and training for Ukraine by Allies and partners, and confirmed the creation of the NATO-Ukraine Joint Analysis, Training and Education Centre (JATEC) to identify and apply lessons learned and increase Ukraine’s interoperability with NATO. They also announced a Pledge of Long-Term Security Assistance for Ukraine, providing a minimum baseline funding of EUR 40 billion within the next year, and sustainable levels of security assistance in the future. On partnerships, Allies welcomed leaders from Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea and the European Union to discuss common security challenges and areas of cooperation. They also welcomed Sweden to its first summit as a NATO Ally.
The Heads of State and Government of the 32 NATO Allies meet in the North Atlantic Council during NATO’s 75th anniversary summit.