At the summit of the North Atlantic Alliance, which will be held in The Hague, the meeting of the NATO Council on Ukraine is not foreseen. In addition, as of now, it remains unknown whether the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi will be personally present at the summit. About this informs publication Politico, citing informed sources familiar with the details of the preparation.
Organizers of the event decided to significantly reduce the summit program even before US President Donald Trump unexpectedly left the G7 summit before the end of the second day of meetings. As a representative of his administration explained, the head of the White House showed impatience for multilateral ceremonial events. The NATO summit in The Hague will be built on a similar principle — instead of large final documents and hours-long meetings, only a few short statements about new commitments are planned.
As Politico reports, the summit program includes only two key events: an official dinner at the castle of the Dutch royal family and one meeting of the North Atlantic Council. Previously, at least two or three plenary sessions were held at such summits. Five interlocutors of the publication, familiar with the planning process, confirmed that other events, in particular the meeting devoted to Ukraine, were excluded from the agenda.
The presence of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi has not yet been confirmed. According to sources, he has only been invited to the gala dinner to mark the opening of the summit, which is to be held on Tuesday. At the same time, the political decision not to hold the NATO-Ukraine Council was, according to Politico journalists, a concession on the part of the United States. Washington, despite calls from a number of allies, did not insist on discussing the Ukrainian issue, trying to avoid excessive attention to the war, which is still not over, despite Trump’s pre-election promises to stop it.
Also, sources in the Alliance indicate that the reduction of the summit program is partly aimed at reducing tension within NATO regarding the issue of the new target indicator of defense spending. The United States and a number of Eastern European countries are advocating that new funding levels be reached by 2030. At the same time, the smaller allies, which have not yet reached the current benchmarks, insist on extending this deadline to 2032 or even 2035.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte proposed an intermediate date of 2032 as a compromise. But in recent days, some countries have continued to resist, which is why, according to one European official, the final version of the decision may allow the new spending figure (5% of GDP) to be reached only by 2035.
It will be recalled that the day before Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that he had not yet decided whether he would personally attend the summit in The Hague. At the same time, he expressed hope for a meeting with Donald Trump during the event. Earlier it was reported that Zelenskyi plans to hold talks with the President of the European Council Antonio Kosta, the head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and the new NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on June 24 in The Hague.
According to Politico, in the draft final document of the summit, as in previous years, Russia will be called a “direct threat.” However, the wording that Ukraine is on the “irreversible path” to NATO membership will probably be removed from it. Also, the new NATO defense plan does not currently provide for mandatory contributions to Ukraine’s needs, despite the allies’ previous proposals to include them in the new financial benchmarks.
