President Zelensky's participation in the NATO summit remains in question.
Ahead of next week's NATO summit in The Hague, the alliance has decided to cancel a meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Council. This happened despite calls from some allies to hold such a meeting.
Politico reports this.
Optimized Summit
This year’s NATO leaders’ summit, which will last 24 hours instead of the usual two days, is heavily optimized around a key commitment to increase defense spending. The 32-nation alliance plans to make a new commitment to spend 5 percent of gross domestic product on defense (3.5 percent on military spending and 1.5 percent on related defense efforts).
The move is aimed at satisfying US President Donald Trump's insistence on increasing Europe's contribution to its own defence. According to one White House official, Trump sees it as a “big win” because “they would never have reached 5% without Trump”.
Cancellation of meeting on Ukraine
Despite the fact that Russia’s war against Ukraine is far from over, the Ukraine-NATO Council will not meet in The Hague. This is another concession by the US on the part of the Alliance, because Washington has no interest in increasing attention to a war that Donald Trump promised to “end in 24 hours” during his election campaign.
Even Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's presence at the summit remains in question: he has only been invited to a congratulatory dinner on Tuesday, but not to the main sessions.
Overall, the abbreviated NATO summit schedule includes only two major events: a congratulatory dinner at the Dutch royal family's castle and one meeting of the North Atlantic Council instead of the usual two or three. The reduced agenda is an attempt by the allies to mask disagreements over the timing of the new defense spending target.
Let us recall that, because of Donald Trump, the current NATO summit in The Hague on June 24-25 again risks becoming the site of a major geopolitical quarrel. short, one page, and “emasculated”.
