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NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte was chosen in part because of a near-mythical belief in Brussels that he is something of a "Trump-whisperer" who developed a good relationship with the American during his first administration.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte was chosen in part because of a near-mythical belief in Brussels that he is something of a "Trump-whisperer" who developed a good relationship with the American during his first administration.

Welcome to Wider Europe, RFE/RL's newsletter focusing on the key issues concerning the European Union, NATO, and other institutions and their relationships with the Western Balkans and Europe's Eastern neighborhoods.

I'm RFE/RL Europe Editor Rikard Jozwiak, and this week I'm drilling down on one big issue: The future of NATO going into 2025.

Note to Readers: You can now listen to my briefings by clicking on the audio link below. We're actually using an AI version of my voice and would love to know what you think -- and, of course, what we can improve.

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The Briefing: NATO Braces For An Unpredictable 2025

When speaking to NATO officials about the incoming U.S administration, I generally hear some variation on "We'll make it work," immediately followed by a reassuring, "Don't worry, we're not in panic mode." But will they? And aren't they, actually?

In his first term as U.S. president, Donald Trump was said to have been toying with a possible U.S. withdrawal from the military alliance over burden-sharing (notably at a summit in Brussels in 2018). Then, on the campaign trail earlier this year, he said he would encourage Russia to do "whatever the hell they want" with NATO members that didn't spend enough of defense -- essentially casting doubt on Article 5, the collective-defense clause of the North Atlantic Treaty that is the cornerstone of the organization. Trump's nominee for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has also questioned why the United States should be the European "emergency contact number," and has described the continent's NATO allies as "outdated, outgunned, invaded, and impotent."

Many NATO diplomats I've chatted with have tried to make sense of the U.S. president-elect's flurry of cabinet picks. In the first administration, you had what one source called "NATO guardrails" in the form of seasoned U.S. generals like Jim Mattis and H.R. McMaster -- people who were very much shaped by the Cold War and NATO's role as a fundamental Western building block. It was pointed out to me that Hegseth has instead been influenced by the Iraq war, and more importantly by Afghanistan. Whisper it if you're in the alliance's Brussels corridors, but Afghanistan is widely seen as a major failure in which NATO pulled out after 20 years and let the Taliban reconquer the place. Moreover, no one's saying it very loudly but inside NATO it's seen as a conflict in which the United States was doing the heavy lifting while many Europeans were present but avoided much of the action.

The Trump team's selection of former acting Attorney-General Matthew Whitaker as ambassador to NATO also raised eyebrows, as he doesn't appear to have much foreign policy experience. The press release announcing the nomination sent mixed messages, saying that Whitaker will both "strengthen relationships with our NATO Allies" and "put AMERICA FIRST." I should note that Trump's NATO ambassador during his first term, Kay Bailey Hutchison, also had little foreign policy experience but ended up being well regarded within the alliance. Diplomats told me it's a good sign that the new pick for NATO ambassador has been announced so early; Trump didn't nominate Hutchinson until June 2017, more than six months into his presidency. Many also seemed reassured by the presumptive national security adviser, Michael Waltz, and by the man picked for secretary of state, Senator Marco Rubio, who is known to many in Europe and co-authored U.S. legislation in 2023 barring any president from exiting NATO without Senate approval or an act Congress.

Keeping The Alliance Relevant

What many say they learned from the first Trump term is that one should heed actions rather than the "noise" playing out in the media. They noted, for example, that Trump increased the U.S. military presence on NATO's eastern flank. They do, however, acknowledge a certain nervousness about the perceived "unpredictability" of the incoming president and his team. All organizations want some sort of stability, but even more so a military one and especially NATO, where even annual summits are carefully choreographed: Major decisions are generally made weeks, if not months, in advance and the final meeting communique is rarely tampered with during the actual summit (unlike, for instance, European Union meetings, at which leaders can fight on for days over every comma).

The key is essentially to keep NATO relevant. And that can only happen if the military alliance can defend every inch of its territory. Simply put: deterrence. And that means 1) plenty of powerful military gear, which the United States has; and 2) the political will to honor Article 5. It's the second of those two things that people at NATO are fretting over.

The Two-Pronged Tactic

The NATO tactic to keep Washington coupled with the alliance going forward is two-pronged and can be detected in pretty much everything that NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has said since taking up the hot seat in October. The first is higher defense spending among NATO's European members; the second is a greater focus on China. In fact, it was Trump who hammered home these two things in his first term, and that has not gone unnoticed inside the alliance. When Trump was last president, just a handful of countries were spending the required 2 percent of GDP on defense; today, it's 24 of the 32 allies, and many credit the rise to Trump's scare tactics (although the war in Ukraine has obviously been a contributing factor). Rutte has been on the record from the very start saying that 2 percent is not enough. NATO officials I've spoken to argue that most must reach 3.5 percent in order to be competitive. The official commitment is there, but the question is whether it's accompanied by political will -- particularly considering that many European economies, notably Germany's, are hardly growing. Another problem is that the European defense market remains fragmented. And while the continent produces good stuff, it's rather "artisanal" in its approach -- in other words, its goods are high-end but take time to manufacture and don't come in bulk. Another NATO diplomat I spoke to was more blunt: "The Americans have better [aircraft] carriers, better drones, better air defense -- just better capabilities in general. Plus, the size of their army dwarfs every European one." Don't rule out European allies buying American in an attempt to please the new administration, instead of going through the longer-term and more painstaking ordeal of ramping up their own domestic production.

On China, NATO has already moved toward a much tougher stance on Beijing. The leaders of the alliance's four Asia-Pacific partners (Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea) have already attended the last three NATO summits, and will be welcomed in the future. The quartet will also have a seat at the table in defense and foreign affairs meetings going forward. NATO diplomats keep arguing that the alliance is good for the United States, as its 32 members account for half the world's military and economic might, while China doesn't have 31 friends or allies. The European Commission recently slapped tariffs on Chinese-produced electric vehicles, and Sino-European relations might further sour following two recent events. The first was news that European intelligence believes Chinese-made military drones have been sent to Russia. The second was the severing last week of two Internet cables under the Baltic Sea, with a Chinese vessel reportedly spotted near both locations. Given that another Chinese ship destroyed the Balticconnector natural gas pipeline that runs between Estonia and Finland in 2023 and that Beijing declined to cooperate on any international investigation (although it acknowledged fault), many European governments might join Washington in becoming more hawkish on China.

The Trump-Whisperer And The EU Problem

Then, of course, there is NATO Secretary-General Rutte himself. The former Dutch prime minister was chosen in part because of a near-mythical belief in Brussels that he is something of a "Trump-whisperer" who developed a good relationship with the American during his first administration. People close to Rutte believe he's one of the few European leaders whom Trump actually respects, and he hasn't been shy about crediting Trump for the increased European defense spending. It's not for nothing that he was at Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence over the weekend. Ever the pragmatist, Rutte famously noted before he got his new gig at NATO that Europe must stop worrying about who's in the White House and "dance with whoever is on the dancefloor."

Despite the preparations, people I speak to still ponder what might go wrong. One scenario involves Americans conflating NATO with the European Union. While the belief within the military alliance is that Trump is OK with NATO as long as Europeans pay more, the European Union is bracing for a trade war. Billionaire entrepreneur and avid Trump supporter Elon Musk is a key individual in that context. Musk has sparred publicly with European politicians on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter that he bought two years ago. The fear is that Musk's interests will become very much intertwined with those of the U.S. administration. X is in the EU's regulatory crosshairs, notably in connection with the recently enacted Digital Service Act (DSA) that governs online content moderation in the EU. Most Internet giants try to comply with it; but the European Commission recently opened formal DSA proceedings against X that could result in fines of up to 1 billion euros ($1.04 billion). The fear is that this could erupt into an almighty transatlantic rift, with NATO suffering collateral damage.

Poland's Moment

There is perhaps one European country to watch out for in particular: Poland. Irrespective of the government in Warsaw, relations with Washington are warm. That's for good reason; Poland is spending more than any other NATO member on defense (a projected 4.7 percent of GDP in 2025). It has also invested massively in U.S. weapons: A new U.S. ballistic-missile-defense base was opened there in November, a U.S. company is building nuclear reactors in the country, and 10,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Poland. Will Warsaw be the county that keeps the U.S. anchored in Europe? Many officials I speak to hope so.

Something else to monitor is what might happen to the 90,000 or so U.S. troops deployed elsewhere on European soil, and whether they are redeployed outside Europe or mostly moved from Western Europe to the eastern flank. Poland could prove crucial, with Emmanuel Macron's France hobbled by a government dependent on the support of the far-right National Rally. For its part, Germany is facing federal elections in February that are likely to be followed by protracted coalition talks. But it's also the case that the person tipped so far to emerge as German chancellor, center-right candidate Friedrich Merz, could strike up a well-functioning relationship with Trump, thanks in part to his roots in the business sector and his hawkishness on the issue of immigration.

Ukraine In The Balance

It is ultimately the future of nonmember Ukraine that will shape much debate at NATO in the coming months. Publicly at least, European allies have clung to the notion of "nothing about Ukraine, without Ukraine." But there are signs that Washington is moving in the direction of "land for peace" despite Kyiv's insistence that it won't cede territories to Russia.

While no one I've spoken to is privy to any concrete negotiation plan with Russia, one way or another, NATO will be part of any conversation. For instance, might NATO membership be offered to a "reduced Ukraine"? And would all 32 allies agree to such a thing, as is required for any accession? The concern I invariably hear in this context is that Moscow might immediately test Article 5 by sending a rocket into "reduced Ukraine" in the hope that there's no appetite within the alliance to fight Russia -- a hope informed, perhaps, by recent NATO summits at which Ukraine's invitation to NATO remained as elusive as ever.

Instead, it could be that NATO membership will be on hold for a longer period of time. European diplomats I've spoken to have instead suggested more robust bilateral security deals with Kyiv, sending greater quantities and more sophisticated arms so Ukraine could defend itself if Moscow decided to heat up what could be a budding frozen conflict.

Looking Ahead

Check out the European Parliament plenary this week. On November 27, the chamber is voting on confirmation of the next European Commission, which, if green-lighted, will officially start working on December 1. Then, on November 28, MEPs will vote on a nonbinding resolution on Georgia; the key point to watch is whether they demand new elections there.

That's all for this week. Feel free to reach out to me on any of these issues on X @RikardJozwiak or on e-mail at jozwiakr@rferl.org.

Until next time,

Rikard Jozwiak

If you enjoyed this briefing and don't want to miss the next edition subscribe here.

A demonstrator holds an EU and a Georgian national flag at an opposition protest against the results of the parliamentary election in Tbilisi on October 28.
A demonstrator holds an EU and a Georgian national flag at an opposition protest against the results of the parliamentary election in Tbilisi on October 28.

Welcome to Wider Europe, RFE/RL's newsletter focusing on the key issues concerning the European Union, NATO, and other institutions and their relationships with the Western Balkans and Europe's Eastern neighborhoods.

I'm RFE/RL Europe Editor Rikard Jozwiak, and this week I am drilling down on two issues: what the EU can do about Georgia and the potential changes 2025 will bring for people entering the EU.

Note to Readers: You can now listen to my briefings by clicking on the audio link below. We're actually using an AI version of my voice and would love to know what you think -- and, of course, what we can improve.

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0:00 0:13:31 0:00

Briefing #1: The EU's Dwindling Options On Georgia

What You Need To Know: More than three weeks after the Georgian parliamentary elections, which saw the ruling Georgian Dream party winning with 54 percent of the vote but has also led to opposition protests and a boycott of parliament, the European Union remains unsure of how to react.

Generally speaking, this is connected to three things: a paucity of options going forward, divisions within the EU, and a lack of clarity over what actually took place on election day and during the run-up to the parliamentary vote.

The EU was cautious in its first statement after the vote, quoting the OSCE/ODIHR preliminary findings and noting that "irregularities" had occurred. Three days later, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell ramped up the pressure somewhat with another statement asking for a transparent inquiry and noting that international observers "have also not declared the elections to be free and fair."

Then, at a debate on the Georgian elections in the European Parliament on November 13, came the strongest rebuke so far of the ruling authorities in Tbilisi when European Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas said that "these elections were marked by serious irregularities, with violations reported both during the election campaign and the election day itself. These elections fall short of the standards expected of a country holding EU candidate status."

Deep Background: Yet, the EU already seems to be forgetting about Georgia. You could see it at the summits in Budapest in early November. Attending the European Political Community (EPC) summit in the Hungarian capital, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze took the floor after warm congratulations from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who had raced to Tbilisi directly after the elections to celebrate Georgian Dream's success and thus publicly breaking the EU's unity.

In Budapest, Kobakhidze reportedly criticized "some Europeans" for expressing their disappointment at the election result, called for Georgia to be treated fairly by the EU, and said that the opposition didn't enjoy the support of the Georgian people. The Georgian leader spoke at the end of the meeting, and, with Orban only giving the floor to non-EU country leaders, there were no direct reactions to his speech.

EU leaders were supposed to discuss Georgia in depth on the second day of the EPC summit, but the reelection of Donald Trump as U.S. president and a presentation by former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi on the bloc's competitiveness dominated the proceedings. That day, only the Estonian and Lithuanian leaders mentioned Georgia at all.

Diplomats I spoke to were a little peeved that European Council President Charles Michel had a bilateral meeting with Kobakhidze but didn't mention anything about that meeting or about Georgia at the final press conference. That meeting was described by a senior EU official who wasn't authorized to speak on the record as lasting "less than 10 minutes" and Michel, according to the diplomat, expressed "deep concerns" about alleged electoral violations and called for an investigation.

Drilling Down:

  • There were other signs the issue is already on the back burner. During the hearing in the European Parliament of the incoming new EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, Georgia was not mentioned at all during the three-hour grilling. The incoming new EU enlargement commissioner, Marta Kos, also didn't mention Georgia in the introductory speech to her hearing, but was asked about the issue by a member of the European Parliament. She did say that the process of Georgia applying to join the EU, which has been put on hold, could resume if the government nixed the recently adopted and controversial "foreign-agent" law and "anti-LGBT law."
  • Ultimately, the EU will (perhaps reluctantly) have to engage with the Georgian Dream government. According to the EU officials I've spoken to, there is definitely a sense that they are the only ones on the dance floor, so the EU doesn't really have much choice.
  • Part of the problem for EU officials is that there isn't really a smoking gun when it comes to accusations of widespread fraud. There is skepticism that the ruling party got 54 percent suppport in the elections, but it's hardly an outlandish claim. (Something more realistic would perhaps have been support of somewhere between 40 and 50 percent.)
  • Given that the OSCE election-monitoring report can take around three months to appear, there isn't much that can be done now except wait.
  • Meeting on November 18, EU foreign ministers are expected to discuss Georgia. But they are likely to discuss the same options paper on how Brussels could reorient its policy toward Georgia that they discussed in June. And can anything new be decided? Georgia's EU accession has already stalled, and political contacts between the bloc and Tbilisi have been downgraded. Thirty million euros ($31.7 million) in military aid and 120 million euros in direct assistance to the government remain frozen.
  • Sanctions would require a consensus that doesn't exist. It is not only Hungary and Slovakia who would oppose but also Bulgaria and Italy, to name just two. Visa-liberalization suspension has been mooted, but many, including Germany, aren't keen to target the general population.
  • Potentially, one measure that only requires a qualified majority (55 percent of member states, representing 65 percent of the total EU population) would be to introduce visa requirements for Georgian officials traveling into the bloc.
  • Some member states, notably in Central and Eastern Europe, will likely push for some sort of international investigation into the possible election violations. But this has its pitfalls as well. Firstly, would the Georgian government accept it? And would an EU-backed investigation come up with something radically different to what the OSCE is already working on? And, as one diplomat told me: Is now really the time to start questioning the findings of OSCE/ODIHR electoral missions in general? There has been an agreement to send a so-called "technical mission" of diplomats from the European Commission and the European External Action Service (EEAS), the EU's diplomatic service. They will speak to all stakeholders in the country and report back to Brussels.
  • At the end of November, the European Parliament is likely to pass a nonbinding resolution on Georgia. That could look similar to the resolution the parliament adopted in February following the December 2023 Serbian parliamentary elections, which were marred by irregularities. That document both called for "an independent international investigation by respected international legal experts and institutions" and urged the European Commission "to launch an initiative to send an expert mission to Serbia to assess the situation as regards the recent elections and postelection developments." It's worth noting that, in the case of Serbia, neither the investigation nor the expert mission has materialized yet. Relations with Belgrade remain frosty but intact. With the ongoing war in Ukraine and a new U.S. administration coming in January, the bloc will most likely be focused elsewhere.

Briefing #2: Will 2025 Be A 'Big Bang' Moment For Travelers To The EU?

What You Need To Know: The weekend before last could have been the big unveiling of the EU's new Entry/Exit System (EES). This new system will mean that when a non-EU citizen crosses any border or enters any airport or harbor in 25 EU countries (all the member states apart from Cyprus and Ireland) and four non-EU countries (Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Lichtenstein), they would have to register their full name, nationality, and have their fingerprints and photo taken, possibly in a newly installed self-service kiosk.

The EES has been in the works ever since it was approved by the EU in late 2017 and will do away with the manual stamping of non-EU passports, replacing the old system with a large electronic database. According to the European Commission, the EES will help prevent irregular migration, help third-country nationals travel more easily, plus identify attempts at overstaying or identity fraud. Yet the grand unveiling never happened, not on November 10 as planned, nor on the back-up date, November 17.

Deep Background: To be fair, the dates were never actually set in stone. There was also vaguer talk of it happening sometime in the final quarter of this year. And it also wasn't the first time it was delayed. In 2020, it was the coronavirus pandemic that prevented it. Then, in 2022 and 2023, the new system still wasn't ready.

So why the constant delays? A generous answer is that this is a massive IT undertaking and the technology is untested at this scale. When, back in October, interior ministers agreed that a November rollout wasn't possible, it was France, Germany, and the Netherlands -- three member states with multiple entry points -- that were putting on the brakes.

The German Interior Ministry noted then that the central computer system underpinning the EES, which is overseen by the EU agency eu-LISA, lacked "the necessary stability and functionality."

An EU diplomat familiar with the issue was more brutal, telling me that the entire system was "shoddy" and complaining about a lack of testing before the official launch. While eu-LISA has said that all EU member states were technically ready, there were widespread fears that the new system would create chaos at the continent's key hubs, hitting crucial business and tourism with massive border queues.

There is a fear among EU officials that the teething issues with a system of such magnitude run the risk of causing massive reputational damage, potentially jeopardizing years of planning.

Drilling Down:

  • One of the problems is that the EU wanted to launch it everywhere all at once. A "big bang" of sorts. The thinking now in Brussels, however, is a more phased-in approach, which means that the already agreed upon operating regulations will have to be amended. This can be done if there is political will (which seems to exist) but it is now up to the European Commission to define what exactly this phased-in approach means.
  • Does it mean that it will be gradually rolled out geographically, for example, in just a few countries or some specific airports? Or does it mean that only some biometric details will be registered but not all -- for example, skipping the taking of fingerprints? The new European Commission, which is likely to be sworn in in December, will have to tackle this as a matter of urgency.
  • In the meantime, many hubs and border crossings will continue to prepare for an eventual launch in 2025 by adding more automatic barriers, self-service kiosks, tweaking the preregistration app, and training staff and border guards.
  • There is another thing for non-EU citizens traveling into the visa-free Schengen zone to consider. The plan is that once the EES is operational, the European Travel Information and Authorization System (ETIAS) will follow some six months later. ETIAS is something like an EU equivalent to the already functioning U.S. Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) and the recently established U.K. Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA). This will cover all visa-exempt travelers to the EU, with an estimated 1.4 billion people needing to apply. This includes, for example, U.S. and British citizens but also Ukrainians, Georgians, and Moldovans, as well as citizens of the non-EU Western Balkan states.
  • It is worth pointing out that getting ETIAS approval is not a visa, nor does it guarantee entry. The authorization, valid for three years, will cost seven euros and will have to be completed by everyone between the ages of 18 to 70. Some people will be able to get exemptions. Among them are individuals with visas and residence permits, refugees, diplomatic passport holders, and airport transit passengers.
  • ETIAS was agreed by the EU in 2018 and, like the EES, is part of the push to make the Schengen zone more robust by having greater control of who is entering. With immigration once again top of the political agenda across the bloc, there is likely to be a firm push by several member states, as well as the European Commission, to have both systems up and running in 2025.

Looking Ahead

On November 22, the interior ministers of Hungary, Austria, Bulgaria, and Romania will assemble to try to iron out the final details of the latter two countries' full entry into the Schengen zone. Since the start of this year, both countries are part of Schengen when it comes to air and maritime travel but not land crossings, with Vienna blocking it due to migration concerns. There are indications, though, that a deal can be struck, which would mean EU ministers could finally give an official green light when they meet in Brussels on December 12.

That's all for this week! Feel free to reach out to me on any of these issues on X @RikardJozwiak, or on e-mail at jozwiakr@rferl.org.

Until next time,

Rikard Jozwiak

If you enjoyed this briefing and don't want to miss the next edition subscribe here.

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About The Newsletter

The Wider Europe newsletter briefs you every Tuesday morning on key issues concerning the EU, NATO, and other institutions’ relationships with the Western Balkans and Europe’s Eastern neighborhoods.

For more than a decade as a correspondent in Brussels, Rikard Jozwiak covered all the major events and crises related to the EU’s neighborhood and how various Western institutions reacted to them -- the war in Georgia, the annexation of Crimea, Russia’s support for separatists in eastern Ukraine, the downing of MH17, dialogue between Serbia and Kosovo, the EU and NATO enlargement processes in the Western Balkans, as well as visa liberalizations, free-trade deals, and countless summits.

Now out of the “Brussels bubble,” but still looking in -- this time from the heart of Europe, in Prague -- he continues to focus on the countries where Brussels holds huge sway, but also faces serious competition from other players, such as Russia and, increasingly, China.

To subscribe, click here.

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