BRUSSELS – NATO’s defense ministers are gathering in Brussels on June 7 and 8 for their first meeting in the new NATO Headquarters building, ahead of the upcoming NATO Summit on July 11-12.
But the group photographs, handshakes and speeches are occurring against of backdrop of disagreements among the 29 allies, which NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg diplomatically describes as “differences.”
One is U.S. President Donald J. Trump, who has undermined transatlantic unity by first tearing up the Paris Climate Accord, and then the Iran nuclear deal, and who has now fired the opening shots in a trade war, slapping tariffs on steel and aluminum products from the European Union, many states of which are also key members of NATO.
NATO’s position on sanctions against Russia has always been solid – the allies fully supported the restrictive measures introduced in response to Russia’s war against Ukraine, including its military invasion and illegal annexation of the Crimean peninsula.
But at the same time, NATO is using a so-called “dual-track” approach towards Moscow, combining deterrence and defense with dialogue without practical cooperation.
“I think it is important to continue this dialogue,” Stoltenberg said during the press conference ahead of the NATO defense ministers’ meeting.
“The dialogue with Russia is not easy, that’s exactly why it’s so important. I think the economic sanctions are important because they send a clear message that what Russia has done in Ukraine has to have consequences, and Russia has to change behavior before the sanctions should be lifted.”
All the same, it is not expected that the newly appointed minister of defense of Italy, Elisabetta Trenta, will raise the issue of sanctions against Russia during her first meeting at NATO HQ. But still, the new government in Italy definitely has a different position on this to those of most other NATO member states.
As for the trade spat between the United States and Europe, the NATO secretary general emphasized the positive, underlining that NATO is an alliance of 29 different nations on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
“We all have a different history, different geography and also sometimes different views about serious issues,” Stoltenberg said. “And that’s exactly what we see now. We see differences on trade, we see differences on issues related to climate change, the Paris Accord, and also to, for instance, the Iran Nuclear Deal. And these are serious differences between NATO allies. At the same time, we have to remember that we have seen differences before, all the way back to the 1950s where NATO Allies disagreed on the Suez Crisis or when France decided to leave the Command Structure in the 1960s, or the Iraq War in 2003. So, it’s nothing new that there are differences between NATO allies. And what we have seen again and again is that we have been able to unite around NATO’s core task, to protect and defend each other despite those differences. And my main responsibility is to make sure that we continue to do that, despite the differences we see on trade, on the environment, and on other issues.”
Obviously, the trade issue will be not on the agenda of this meeting, but Trump will soon be in Brussels for the NATO summit, and it’s difficult to imagine, given the current state of relations, that the European allies will welcome him with open arms.
As far as the agenda itself, ministers will discuss strengthening deterrence and defense, boosting NATO’s Command Structure by more than 1,200 personnel. It is also expected that ministers will agree to base a new Joint Forces Command for the Atlantic in Norfolk, Virginia in the United States, and a new Enabling Command in Ulm, Germany. Further down the agenda are questions of burden-sharing and defense spending, and the fight against terrorism.
At the last session, on Friday, the NATO defense ministers will meet with representatives of operational partner nations in the NATO mission in Afghanistan (Resolute Support), including Ukrainian Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak.
As of now, this is the only format in which the Allies can meet with Ukraine at the level of ministers, because since last year meetings of the NATO-Ukraine Commission have been blocked by a dispute between Ukraine and Hungary, which is a NATO member.
Budapest’s actions were prompted by Ukraine’s new law on education, which requires public school classes to be taught in the Ukrainian language. Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban has complained that the law discriminates against the more than 100,000-member Hungarian community in Ukraine.
Only if this issue is resolved will Kyiv be able to restart meetings of the NATO-Ukraine Commission at the level of ministers, and during the NATO Summit at the level of heads state and government.
