On Monday, May 30, 2022, Their Majesties King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain hosted a luncheon at Palacio Real in Madrid on the occasion of Spain’s entrance into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Prior to the luncheon, His Majesty King Felipe VI, accompanied by at the NATO Secretary-General, Mr. Jens Stoltenberg, presided over a commemoration ceremony of the 40th Anniversary of Spain’s entry into NATO held at the Royal Theater.
On May 29-30, 2022 Madrid hosts the NATO Summit, 25 years after the last meeting of NATO leaders on Spanish soil in 1997.
According to the Spanish royal court, the holding of the NATO Summit in Madrid also coincides with the 40th anniversary of Spain’s accession to the Atlantic Alliance:
“Spain’s commitment to NATO is manifested in the fact that our country participates in most of the organization’s missions, and does so with more than 900 troops. Our Armed Forces are the seventh in number of troops in the entire Alliance. In this sense, the presence of the Spanish Armed Forces stands out in the missions in which the Alliance is immersed, among which are the advanced presence in Latvia, as well as in areas of the Baltic and Romania or the deployments in Iraq and Turkey, among other.
This NATO summit in Madrid marks the defense industry’s agenda for the year and it renews NATO’s Strategic Concept for the next decade and advances in the 2030 initiative.”