Poland in Canada

Poland started on the path to NATO officially in 1992, and ended in 1999. But free Poland’s first official contacts with NATO date back to 1990. On 21 March 1990, Poland’s  first non-communist Foreign Minister Krzysztof Skubiszewski visited NATO headquarters in Brussels.

After transformations in Central and Eastern Europe, the end of the Warsaw Pact and the collapse of the USSR, Poland decided that NATO membership was the best guarantee of sovereignty and security, specifically in the politico-military dimension.

Poland's many years of diplomatic efforts, as well as reforms carried out in the field of defense, have resulted in the admission of Poland to the member countries of the North Atlantic Alliance. On March 12, 1999, in the city of Independence in the United States, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland handed over to the US Secretary of State the ratification instrument of the North Atlantic Treaty.

Canada was the first country of the Alliance that ratified the Accession Protocols.