Wider Europe

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. To subscribe, click here.

I'm RFE/RL Europe Editor Rikard Jozwiak, and this week I'm drilling down on two issues: How Viktor Orban's trips have riled Brussels, and what Ukraine took away from the NATO summit.

Briefing #1: Hungary Rattles Brussels, Again

What You Need To Know: It was clear from the very start of Hungary's six-month presidency of the Council of the EU that it would be controversial. Not so much because of legislative work in Brussels (as there isn't much happening on that front right now), but rather because of what top Hungarian politicians have been up to in recent days.

After spending time in Kyiv and meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban continued to Susa (known as Shushi in Armenian) in Nagorno-Karabakh to participate in the informal summit of the Organization of Turkic States.

Then Orban went to Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, before jetting off to Beijing to catch up with Chinese President Xi Jinping. He finished his tour by participating in the NATO summit in Washington, D.C., where, according to several sources I have spoken to on background as they don't have the authority to speak on the record, he made a scathing speech during the closed-door NATO-Ukraine Council against Kyiv's possible membership in the military alliance. That position was apparently in contradiction to an official NATO communiqué adopted with Orban's consent just 24 hours earlier.

Several leaders spoke out against the Hungarian prime minister, creating the only real flash point at the summit. Orban finished his U.S. leg of the journey by visiting the Republican presidential candidate, political ally, and former U.S. President Donald Trump at his home in Florida.

Deep Background: Of course, Orban, is free to go wherever he pleases, calling his own efforts his "peace mission." But what has irked Brussels and many other EU member states is, because Hungary is holding the rotating presidency, it is giving the impression that he is representing the EU on these trips, notably in Moscow and Susa.

Another concern in Brussels is what Orban is saying on those visits, especially in Russia. After the trip, he did send a letter to Charles Michel, president of the European Council, which is composed of the EU heads of state and government, and all the bloc's leaders.

Seen by RFE/RL, the letter concerns Orban's meeting with Putin, who is sanctioned by Brussels and wanted by the International Criminal Court. The Hungarian prime minister notes that he "did not put forth any proposal and did not articulate any opinion on behalf of the European Council or the European Union."

He did, however, note that time was ripe for a cease-fire and a road map to peace talks and added that "political leadership provided by the United States is limited, due to the ongoing [presidential] election campaign. Therefore, we can expect no such proposal coming from the United States in the coming months. We should consider -- in the spirit of European strategic autonomy -- launching a European initiative."

Interestingly, Orban has not been pushing for the EU-backed Ukrainian peace plan, nor does his letter indicate that he urged Moscow to stop its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began in 2022.

Instead, he noted in the letter that "we see the buildup of dangerous military capabilities, and the negative economic effects of the war place a great burden on the everyday lives of our citizens and on the competitiveness of the EU."

Orban also relayed some of Putin's talking points: that Moscow had detailed plans for a new European security architecture after the war, that Putin estimates that Kyiv loses 40,000-50,000 soldiers every month, and that time is on Russia's side in the war.

Drilling Down

• So how will the rest of the EU react to all of this? After a request from Poland, EU ambassadors on July 10 discussed Orban's trips. In that discussion, all other 25 member states, with the exception of neighbor Slovakia, criticized Hungary's behavior. The legal service of the Council of the EU also gave a clear assessment that the rotating presidency has no role in the external representation of the bloc. It was also noted that all EU member states, including Hungary, had agreed at an EU summit back in 2022 to refrain from contacts with the Russian leadership.
• Before Hungary took over the rotating presidency, several EU officials told me that diplomats were looking into the legal possibilities of stripping Hungary of the presidency. And while not openly discussed at last week's ambassadorial meeting in Brussels, my sources in the EU capital indicate that those legal files were being studied again.
• In fact, all that is needed to cut short Hungary's presidency is for a qualified majority of member states (55 percent of the bloc's members, representing 65 percent of the EU population) to back it. Such a drastic move doesn't seem to be on the near horizon, but with several member states growing increasingly frustrated with Budapest, it cannot be totally ruled out in the future.
• Some symbolic steps against Budapest have already been taken. For example, all European Commissioners normally make a trip to the country holding the presidency to meet the government. This trip was supposed to happen in July and then was postponed till September. But, on July 15, the European Commission announced it won't happen at all and added that meetings in Hungary during the presidency will only be attended by senior civil servants and not commissioners.
• Another potential avenue are boycotts of other EU events taking place in Hungary for the next six months. Every presidency has a number of informal ministerial meetings in which relevant ministers from the member states come to discuss various issues.
• One of those was the Informal Competitiveness Council, a gathering of ministers responsible for competitiveness-related matters in the EU member states, which took place in Budapest on July 8-9. Normally, all the bloc's economy ministers should have attended, but only five ministers did so, including the Hungarian host. All other countries were represented by deputies or lower-level officials.
• Now, there were no official words about downgrading the participation, and the meeting did take place in July when many are on vacation. But normally, these sorts of informal meetings are attended by most of the 27 ministers, and the low attendance could be telling.
• Since then, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Sweden have announced that they won't send ministers to informal council meetings in Hungary later this fall, and it remains to be seen if more member states follow suit.
• It's also possible that the informal EU foreign affairs council, which was supposed to take place at the end of August in Budapest, might be moved to Brussels. A final decision on the venue of that meeting is expected when the bloc's foreign ministers assemble in Brussels on July 22.

Briefing #2: Ukraine Inches Closer To NATO. But Will It Be Quick Enough?

What You Need To Know: While debate and speculation about U.S. President Joe Biden's presidential candidacy overshadowed the NATO summit in Washington, D.C., last week, Ukraine inched closer to the military alliance. There were plenty of decisions, pledges, and promises, but the question remains: Is it enough for Kyiv?

It was clear long before the meeting that Ukraine was never going to get an invitation to join NATO in Washington. That won't happen as long as the war with Russia is raging. But even after the war ends, the 32 allies will still need to reach unanimous agreement to send out such an invitation -- a consensus that simply doesn't exist today.

Heavyweights such as the United States and Germany are still against Ukraine joining, as are Hungary and Slovakia, who are critical of Kyiv. Instead, NATO diplomats were once again busy crafting a summit communiqué that was meant to sound more encouraging for Kyiv than the previous one. And the Washington text is a bit better for Ukraine than the one agreed at the previous summit in Vilnius last summer.

Deep Background: Like in 2023, it is stated that Ukraine's future is in NATO, that NATO foreign ministers will continue to assess reform efforts, and that "we will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the alliance when allies agree, and conditions are met."

What was new this year were the words "bridge" and "irreversible." It was noted that "the summit decisions by NATO and the NATO-Ukraine Council, combined with allies' ongoing work, constitute a bridge to Ukraine's membership in NATO."

Both in the run-up and during the meeting, officials were musing what this "bridge," in fact, entails and metaphorically wondering whether it's a long or a short one and how solid it, in fact, is.

The more crucial sentence was that "as Ukraine continues this vital work, we will continue to support it on its irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership."

The question remains whether this irreversibility is just a word on paper, as Ukraine's NATO fate will ultimately be decided as much on the battlefield as at the negotiating table. And with Ukraine still not getting any green light to strike deeper into Russian territory during the Washington meeting, the scope of the West's support -- and Ukraine's chances of victory in the war -- remain limited.

Drilling Down

• Of concrete deliverables, the American hosts noted with some triumph that F-16 fighter jets from Denmark and the Netherlands are on their way to Ukraine and that they will fly over Ukrainian skies this summer.
• A boost, sure, but then again, the hope was that they would have arrived already in the spring after Kyiv had pleaded for them for nearly two years. It's also clear that by 2027, the war-torn country will only get about half of the 128 jets it has requested.
• In a similar vein, it was announced that Ukraine would get five new air-defense systems, even though it was already known before that four of those were forthcoming. With searing images being shown of a Russian strike on Kyiv's main children's hospital in the lead-up to the summit, the feeling very much was one of too little, too late.
• Within the NATO framework, the NATO training mission for Ukrainian troops on allied territory was rubber-stamped, which according to the military organization will increase the country's interoperability with it even further, even though it was quick to emphasize that creation of the scheme won't make NATO "a party to the conflict."
• Then there was the pledge to deliver 40 billion euros' ($44 billon) worth of varied military assistance to Ukraine in the next year, based on the 32 NATO members' share of alliance gross domestic product (GDP). It was emphasized that this was a minimum baseline, especially since there had been loftier figures considered beforehand.
• Considering the rather generous interpretation of what counts as aid, it's hard to see this target being missed. Countries can, for example, include costs related to maintenance and transport of equipment for Ukraine, training of its soldiers, investment into Ukraine's defense industry, and cash to NATO's trust funds for the country, which include nonlethal aid.
• Yet, there were no complaints from Kyiv this time around, with the organizers keen to avoid the scenes from Vilnius during which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy openly questioned the level of ambition on display.
• This time, Zelenskiy didn't miss an opportunity to express his "gratitude" in all public appearances he had, careful not to ask for too much as the United States readies for a tense presidential election in November and other countries, such as France, grapple with domestic political deadlock.
• Beyond Ukraine, it was rather remarkable that Georgia, which has been an aspirant for NATO membership since 2008, wasn't mentioned at all in the final declaration, apart from Russia's occupation of part of the South Caucasus republic.
• Bosnia-Herzegovina, which is another NATO aspirant, and Moldova, which is constitutionally neutral, got more of a mention and positive wording than Tbilisi did, with the summit declaration noting that "we welcome Moldova's efforts to continue democratic reforms as it advances, as does Bosnia- Herzegovina, with its European integration, and we are committed to supporting their security and defense capabilities, and to enhance their capacity to counter hybrid threats."
• Speaking to several NATO officials after the summit, they confirmed that Georgia is still a NATO aspirant but that "the snub" in the declaration very much is a reflection of the country's move away from the West in recent years.

Looking Ahead

The newly elected European Parliament will have its first session in Strasbourg this week. On July 16, the lawmakers are due to select Robert Metsola as the president of the chamber, but the real nail-biter will be two days later when MEPs vote via secret ballot on whether Ursula von der Leyen will get another mandate as president of the European Commission. To approve her staying on in the job, 361 out of 720 MEPs need to back her, and most analysts and political observers believe it will be a close call.

The same day as the Von der Leyen vote, July 18, another summit of the European Political Community, a forum that fosters political dialogue and cooperation among European countries, takes place in the United Kingdom. Few concrete outcomes are expected as leaders from all European countries, bar Belarus and Russia, attend. So, the most we can expect is probably a lot of political speed dating.

That's all for this week! I'll be on vacation for the next three weeks, so you'll get the next Wider Europe Briefing in your inbox on August 13.

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.

Welcome to Wider Europe, RFE/RL's new 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 big issue: the NATO summit in Washington, D.C., from July 9-11.

Is Ukraine Really Edging Closer To The Alliance?

One of the main things to look out for during the summit is the wording about Ukraine's NATO membership prospects in the final declaration. The drafting of this document, which usually stretches several pages, has been under way in NATO HQ in Brussels for weeks and the main bone of contention is how exactly to craft sentences pertaining to the chances of Kyiv joining the military alliance. Ukraine will not be invited to join now, that much is clear.

NATO has been adamant that Ukraine cannot join as long as the war rages on in the country, as members don't want to be dragged into a direct confrontation with Russia. One can also rule out some of the creative but rather far-fetched ideas like allowing NATO's mutual defense clause, Article 5, to cover the Ukrainian territory that Kyiv currently controls but not the part that Moscow has occupied.

According to NATO officials familiar with the drafting, the idea is to go a bit further than the Vilnius declaration from the summit in the Lithuanian capital last year. At that time, the new thing was that the allies recognized that Ukraine doesn't need a Membership Action Plan (MAP), a sort of "antechamber" to membership that spells out various reforms that a country needs to complete before joining. This step was in fact made redundant when Finland joined in record speed in 2023 and Sweden a year later, without ever receiving a MAP.

But in fact, this isn't so much about reform even if some allies are making noises about the need to combat corruption. It is about finding political consensus on when Ukraine can join and what to say in the meantime. In the Vilnius declaration, there was a nod to the 2008 summit in Bucharest when it first was declared that "Ukraine will become a member of NATO." Expect something similar or even the same language this time around, even though there is likely to be no commitments to some sort of date. The Vilnius text spelled out that "we will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the Alliance when Allies agree, and conditions are met."

From what I have heard, two aspects could be included in the text. U.S. officials, like Secretary of State Antony Blinken, have recently used the term "bridge to membership" when talking about Ukraine and NATO. So expect that this might make its way into the final communique in one form or another, even if it is unclear what exactly that phrase entails. Another word that also might be included is "irreversible," meaning that Kyiv's road to membership is set. So, the sense of direction is there, just don't ask about the timetable.

What Will Ukraine Get?

First of all, many allies are expected to announce more bilateral arms deliveries to Ukraine at the summit. The question, as always, will be how quickly they will arrive on the battlefield. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is expected to be present at the summit and there is hope among NATO officials that there won't be a repeat of the Vilnius summit, where he expressed frustration in a tweet prior to the meeting that Kyiv wasn't given a clearer timetable of joining. This time, they point out that there is more expectation management in the build-up to the meeting, especially with Ukraine struggling at the front lines and the crucial presidential election in the United States just four months away.

In fact, the two big headline items to be announced at the summit are more or less already agreed upon. The first so-called "deliverable" is what you would call the "NATO-ization" of Ukraine aid and training. Essentially, the military organization will now start taking over the coordination of donations of weapons and ammunition deliveries to the war-torn country from the U.S.-led Ramstein Group, which brings together over 50 mainly Western states that have met on a near-monthly basis since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The German city of Wiesbaden will now become a planning center for both training and deliveries with logistical nodes in several eastern alliance countries, involving 700 personnel from NATO and partner countries.

The second announcement concerns military funding for Ukraine. Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg first proposed around 100 billion euros ($108 billion) a year, for five years. Then it was watered down to 40 billion for multiple years, but in the end the 40 billion is committed only for 2024 and funding will be revisited again at the next summit in 2025.

The contribution from the 32 allies would be based on their countries' GDP and it is supposed to be fresh money to help the war effort but there are two question-marks here: will there not be some creative accounting on behalf of some member states? It could very well be that some will attempt to count aid already provided in their calculation or mix military with humanitarian aid. Secondly, this is not a binding commitment. That means that there really isn't any legal requirement to provide that money going forward.

Trump's Skepticism

There is no way around it. The former (and possibly future) U.S. President Donald Trump might be the most talked-about person at and around the summit without even being there. The Republican National Convention, where Trump officially will be nominated as the party's presidential candidate, will kick off just four days after the summit. It's simply hard not to escape the idea that the NATO summit, in one way or another, will become part of the presidential election campaign.

And many of the decisions and messages coming out from the meeting will be a response to his skepticism of the alliance and of his lukewarm support for Ukraine's war effort. The measures mentioned above, like providing Kyiv with a solid financial foundation for the years ahead and to institutionalize training and military deliveries, have been described by alliance officials as "Trump-proofing" in case he returns to power and attempts to unpick decisions already made.

And then there is the military spending by European allies that has been the big bugbear for Trump. Previously he has called those states that didn't reach NATO's own spending target of 2 percent of GDP on defense "delinquents" and noted the United States might not defend alliance members from a potential Russian invasion if they don't pay up, questioning the fundamental principle of NATO.

In response to this, you will hear a lot of figures about how much the allies have stepped up in recent years. In 2014, there was a pledge that in a decade all the members should reach the 2 percent target. That pledge has not entirely been met as 23 out of the 32 members today splash out that or more on its military. But NATO will be quick to point out that Europe and Canada have added over $640 billion extra in defense spending since then. You are also likely to hear that the 2024 figures will show an 18 percent increase in military expenditure compared to last year -- the biggest year-on-year increase for decades.

The Nuts And Bolts And China

Aside from the NATO-Ukraine Council on the leaders' level, there will be two other full working sessions at the summit. The first one will deal with the nuts and bolts of the alliance -- essentially how well-prepared NATO is in case it's attacked. And here, the jury is still out to a certain extent. Last year in Vilnius, a number of regional defense plans were adopted in order to defend "every inch of NATO territory."

Now it's about checking if the plans actually are working -- most importantly by seeing if the capabilities and logistics are in place. NATO has 500,000 troops on high readiness and is exercising at a scale not seen since the Cold War. But one well-placed NATO official conceded that the plans "are functional" but added cautiously, "If NATO was attacked today, they would work but there are pieces of the jigsaw still missing." It has been noted that air defense over the eastern part of the alliance is in short supply, but the bloc also needs more long-range missiles and tanks and must brush up on the logistical side.

The second session is dedicated to China. While the alliance is still focused on the Atlantic theater, it is clear that it is keeping a watchful eye on developments in the Pacific region and Chinese influence there -- a push that very much is dictated by the United States. Like the last two summits, the leaders of NATO's four "Asia-Pacific partners" -- Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea -- will be present at the meeting. Expect a lot of cooperation agreements to be signed in areas such as cyber defense and maritime security.

What Does The Future Hold?

Of course, all eyes will be on U.S. President Joe Biden, the host of the meeting, especially after his poor debate performance. Scrutiny will be enormous, but the question is how many media appearances he will make during the week.

At some point he should meet the press, but it is worth noting that he didn't hold a presser at the Vilnius summit either, which is unusual for American presidents; back then, he didn't even attend the leaders' dinner. He has to be more active here. Behind in the polls in key swing states, it is clear that his advisers will want the summit to be carefully choreographed for him to avoid any unnecessary mishaps.

But Biden is not the only leader of a big Western country fighting for political survival. French President Emmanuel Macron will arrive in Washington after a disappointing parliamentary election result. His mandate expires in 2027 but he may now be wing-clipped domestically and will struggle to enact meaningful legislation with both the left and far-right influential in the new chamber.

In Germany, Olaf Scholz and his coalition are also set to get a proper beating in next year's national elections, meaning that Berlin, Paris, and Washington in many ways are represented by leaders who are politically weak. At least the United Kingdom will have a freshly minted prime minister, Keir Starmer, the first Labour Party leader in Downing Street since 2010 and with a huge majority in Parliament backing him up.

There will be, in other words, a lot to deal with for incoming NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who officially takes over from Jens Stoltenberg later this fall. Stoltenberg, one of the longest-serving heads of NATO with over a decade at the helm, will be missed, not least because of his ability to get along with most leaders and forge a consensus.

In that sense, Rutte will be something of a natural successor. Having recently stepped down as Dutch prime minister after 14 years, he is known for and used to coalition building. He is reportedly also a workaholic and a stickler for processes and rules, which is always good at a military organization. He appears to have mended bridges with previous foes, like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and is well liked in most of the big capitals, notably in Berlin and Paris.

He apparently enjoys the respect of Trump to the degree that he is referred to as the "Trump whisperer." Even in public, he has been unfazed about a possible return of Trump, stating recently that "we (Europeans) have to dance with whoever is on the dance floor." And he will need to pull out his best moves in his hometown, The Hague, which will host the next big NATO summit in 2025.

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

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