In the midst of Russia’s ongoing conflict with Ukraine and questions about Washington’s future in the alliance, leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which includes several European nations, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada, are gathering this week in The Hague, Netherlands, for a yearly summit.
The NATO summit, which starts on Tuesday and lasts for two days, is the first to be attended by Donald Trump, the president of the US, since he took office in January for his second term. Former Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte, the meeting’s former secretary general, will also preside over it.
The Ukraine war and the question of how much money are member states spending on their collective defense, which are both expected to be discussed, are both contentious topics, particularly for the US. Trump has long argued that the US shoulders too much of the financial burden and wants others to raise their defence spending.
The summit may be hampered by the US joining Israel and Iran’s ongoing conflict last weekend. A day after the US attacked three Iranian nuclear facilities, Iran fired missiles at Qatar’s Al Udeid airbase on June 23. Trump has since claimed that Israel and Iran had agreed to a ceasefire, but neither of the two nations has confirmed any deal.
Who is present at the NATO summit?
The North Atlantic Council meeting on June 25 will be the main topic of NATO summits, which will include discussions on security spending and other pressing issues. There are also other important issues that are planned for the two days of meetings.
All 32 NATO heads of state or government, top European Union members, and Ukraine’s representatives are expected at that meeting. They include, among other things,:
- Keir Starmer, the prime minister of the UK,
- Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney
- Donald Trump, the president of the US,
- Emmanuel Macron, the president of France,
- German Chancellor Friedrich Merz
- Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister of Italy,
- Pedro Sanchez, the prime minister of Spain,
- Netherlands Prime Minister Dick Schoof
- Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey,
- Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary,
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy
- Presidents of the European Commission, Antonio Costa and Ursula von der Leyen,
Other NATO members are expected to have:
Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Sweden.
Additionally, Japan, Australia, South Korea, and New Zealand are frequently invited as part of the Asian ally states. Shigeru Ishiba, the prime minister of Japan, and Christopher Luxon, the prime minister of New Zealand, have confirmed their attendance.
Will NATO leaders talk about the conflict between Israel and Iran?
Yes, they are anticipated to address Israel’s ongoing conflict with Iran.
At a media briefing on Friday, a spokesperson for the German government said NATO members would discuss the conflict at the summit, but refused to comment on any military plans.
In an effort to avert a drawn-out Middle East war, the three largest European countries, Germany, France, and the UK, met in Geneva, Switzerland on Friday for talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
What else is scheduled for today?
Several topics are set to be discussed, including Russia’s war and NATO financing.
Ukraine’s support
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the summit has focused solely on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which continues to be a hot topic.
NATO members have long reiterated that their biggest threat is Russia and have been key in funding Ukraine’s resistance.
NATO allies pledged long-term security assistance with at least 50 billion euros in annual funding at the summit of NATO in Washington in 2024.
Prior to the crucial gathering, Rutte stated on June 12 that long-term support for Ukraine was of utmost importance.
“We need to make sure that Ukraine is in the best possible position to one,]sustain] the ongoing conflict with Russia,]following] the unprovoked Russian aggression against Ukraine, but also to be in the best possible position when a long-term ceasefire (or) a peace deal arises, to make sure that Putin will never, ever try this again”, he said.
Ukraine has long hoped to join NATO, but the alliance agreed in 2008 that Kyiv would be admitted once it had met a number of economic, defense, legal, and political prerequisites. The Alliance’s Article 5 policy guarantees that any attack on a member state will be met with a collective defense response, which is a member’s benefit.
Ukraine’s potential membership of NATO is a key issue for Russia and one of the reasons it cited for starting the war. Russia sees a direct threat to its national security as a result of NATO’s expansion beyond its borders.
However, since the Russian invasion, there have been clear-cut differences in the NATO alliance: some members, like Hungary, are more sympathetic to Moscow while others, like Estonia, are eager to welcome Ukraine and request more military support. In Poland’s recent presidential election, the issue of Ukrainian refugees in the country, as well as ties with Europe, were key talking points.
Others are in the middle, afraid to escalate the conflict into an all-member conflict, where Russia frequently threatens that arming Ukraine would entice NATO allies right away.
It has become increasingly uncertain as a result of Trump’s victory in January in the White House.
Trump promised to swiftly end the war while on the campaign trail, but his attempts have not resulted in a ceasefire, and his attitude towards Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been less than friendly, evident in the manner in which the Ukrainian president was scolded during his White House visit in February.
spending on defense
Raising the amount each member spends on defence as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) is also a big topic.
NATO leaders agreed to increase spending on national defense budgets from the previous 1.5 percent threshold to at least 2 percent as the Russian conflict with Ukraine entered its second year in 2023. However, some members haven’t, with only 22 of the member states achieving the goal. Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Italy, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain did not meet this target in 2024.
The Trump administration has also criticized NATO allies for demanding that other countries increase their spending to 5% of GDP, accusing them of relying too heavily on US aid.
The US currently contributes $3.5 billion worth of US money annually. Trump has also cast doubts on whether the alliance should defend those countries not spending enough.
Matthew Whitaker, the US envoy to NATO, stated to reporters in May that “5 percent is our number.” Our allies are being asked to make the right decisions regarding their defense.
Due to that pressure, Secretary General Rutte is likely to ask member states to set a new target of 5 percent of GDP for their defence budgets by 2032, with about 1.5 percentage points of that set aside for “soft spending” on infrastructure and cybersecurity. However, some nations, like Spain, have refrained from approving the increase.
Rutte has also urged member nations to increase their weapons and defense system production. “We have fantastic industrial companies in the US, all over Europe and Canada, but they are not producing at speed”, he said in a June 12 statement. Therefore, more production lines and shifts are required.
Some members have already made plans to increase defense spending.
Earlier this month, the UK announced plans to bring the country to “war readiness”. New nuclear warhead investments, a fleet of new submarines, and new munitions factories are included in its Strategic Defense Review (SDR). However, it is unclear if there are plans to increase this further, despite the UK’s pledge to increase defense spending from currently 2.3% to 2.5% by 2027.
NATO’s leadership comes from the EU.
In the event that Trump unilaterally withdraws from NATO, European nations are increasingly looking to step up their leadership positions, according to the UK’s Financial Times newspaper in March.
The UK, France, Germany and the Nordic countries were among those engaged in informal but structured discussions on reorganising the bloc’s finances to reflect greater European spending, and hoped to present a plan to the US ahead of the summit, the paper reported.
Trump hasn’t stated whether the US will leave NATO, but the EU is already in for a difficult exit. Talks could conceivably include an EU proposal.
Already, the US is estimated to have spent 3.19 percent of its GDP in 2024 on defence, down from 3.68 percent a decade ago, when all members initially promised to increase spending following Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula.
Source: Aljazeera
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