Will NATO survive the day?

 

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Brussels Playbook

Will NATO survive the day?

 

By Tim Ross

June 25, 2025 7:10 am CET

Brussels Playbook

By TIM ROSS

with ZOYA SHEFTALOVICH

https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/brussels-playbook/will-nato-survive-the-day/

 

DONALD TRUMP SET OFF FOR THE NATO SUMMIT in the Netherlands sounding like a worn-out dad who’s frankly HAD ENOUGH of asking his kids NICELY to break it up, brush their teeth and get ready for bed. On Iran and Israel, he said: “We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.”

 

Playbook sympathizes, of course. Good thing Trump booked a babysitter and could get out of the house for dinner with his sophisticated European friends — Mark, Emmanuel and the rest.

 

Welcome to Wednesday. I’m Tim Ross. Ben Munster will be here for Thursday’s fun.

 

DRIVING THE DAY: JAW-JAW ABOUT WAR-WAR 

POLITICO EXCLUSIVE: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is just moments away from sitting down with POLITICO’s Dasha Burns for an exclusive interview on the NATO summit sidelines in The Hague. Follow all our exclusive coverage on our homepage.

 

BACK TO THE MAIN EVENT: The NATO summit is now under way in The Hague and everyone’s just hoping the U.S. president appreciated his evening among the gold chandeliers and frescos of the Dutch king’s palace enough not to quit the alliance due to being, in general, just totally pissed at the state of the entire goddamn world. I mean, who’s in charge anyway?

 

Russian mood: Trump told reporters en route to Europe about another tense moment, this time with his supposed soulmate Vladimir Putin, who continues to bombard Ukraine. “I’d like to see a deal with Russia,” Trump said. “As you know, Vladimir called me up and said, ‘Can I help you with Iran?’ I said, ‘I don’t need help with Iran. I need help with you.’” (Thanks to BuzzFeed for asking a couples therapist what to make of the Trump-Putin bromance going sour.)

 

Favorite son: Mark Rutte, the permanently smiling former Dutch PM who serves as NATO secretary-general, is doing his best to soothe Trump’s grump, and it’s sort-of working.

 

The president shared screenshots on social media of the toe-curlingly obsequious text message Rutte sent to “Mr President, dear Donald” about U.S. air strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. “Congratulations and thank you for your decisive action in Iran, that was truly extraordinary, and something no one else dared to do. It makes us all safer,” Rutte wrote.

 

Making Europe pay again: “You are flying into another big success in The Hague this evening,” Rutte went on, adopting the president’s own language of CAPS. “It was not easy but we’ve got them all signed onto 5 percent! Donald, you have driven us to a really, really important moment for America and Europe, and the world. You will achieve something NO American president in decades could get done. Europe is going to pay in a BIG way, as they should, and it will be your win. Safe travels and see you at His Majesty’s dinner!”

 

Article 5? Who’s counting? Trump teased reporters during his flight with a hint that he might just rewrite that tiny little bit of NATO’s treaty about collective defense. You know, the one that talks about an attack on one member being deemed an attack on all. Asked whether the United States remains committed to NATO’s Article 5 clause, Trump told reporters on Air Force One: “Depends on your definition. There are numerous definitions of Article 5. You know that, right? But I’m committed to being their friends.”

 

“I’m committed to life and safety. And I’m going to give you an exact definition when I get there. I just don’t want to do it on the back of an airplane.”

 

PRESS CONFERENCE PREVIEW: At his press conference later today, Trump intends to talk as much about the U.S. strikes on Iran as he does the 5 percent NATO spending target members agreed to this week, my Stateside colleagues report in this curtain-raiser. (Though as CNN reports this morning, an early U.S. intelligence assessment suggests the strikes didn’t destroy Iran’s nuclear sites and likely only set its capabilities back by months.)

 

Bad Perro: One thing Trump may end up mentioning is Spain’s refusal to sign up to the pledge. Spanish PM Pedro “the dog” Sánchez somehow got himself a carve-out from the goal — then Slovakia joined in. POLITICO’s Jack Detsch and colleagues have the full take on how badly that has gone down already.

 

MORE NUKES PLEASE, WE’RE BRITISH: U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is putting in an order for a dozen F35 warplanes that can be armed with nuclear weapons to enhance Britain’s Armageddon arsenal. At the moment, the U.K. relies for its “deterrent” on its fleet of nuclear-armed submarines, one of which is constantly at sea, ready to help end the world at any time of day or night.

 

It’s an epic decision for the U.K.’s Labour government, almost a year since it was elected. For one thing, there’s unlikely ever to be a bigger policy difference between Starmer and his predecessor as Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who once promised to order the military never to use nuclear weapons if he became PM.

 

BLOOMSCROLLING: Economists at Bloomberg have done the math on what war between NATO and Russia could realistically end up costing the world. Unlike their scroll-down graphics, it’s not pretty: The estimated global cost if Putin were to invade, say, the Baltics, would be 1.5 trillion dollars in the first year, or a hit to global output of 1.3 percent.

 

TODAY’S NATO HIGHLIGHTS ALSO INCLUDE … At around 9:55 a.m. Trump will make “short remarks” alongside Rutte, according to the official NATO agenda (playback will be via the Eurovision news channel, though that doesn’t guarantee a song, apparently). Trump is also planning to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines, for the first time since April at the late pope’s funeral, POLITICO colleagues report.

 

MORE NATO: Clea Caulcutt has this dispatch from an 11-hour flight during which the French military displayed how NATO secures the skies … and POLITICO hosts a live NATO debrief at 4 p.m. today (sign up here).

 

VON DER LEYEN’S BIG GREEN MESS 

SPINNING OUT: Brussels’ political leadership has been wobbling in recent days in a way that has been relatively rare during Ursula von der Leyen’s tenure as European Commission president. The catalyst was the Commission’s announcement last Friday that it intended to withdraw a planned anti-greenwashing law (full explainer here).

 

The fallout of the farcical few days is lingering: It triggered in-fighting within VDL’s Commission as well as major blowback from liberals, Socialists and others who had been her legislative supporters in the European Parliament. They were (and are) hugely annoyed that she failed to consult them before dumping a bill they were close to finalizing. There are now major doubts about whether the Commission is losing its grip, report Max Griera and Marianne Gros.

 

Is VDL backtracking? According to a Commission official familiar with von der Leyen’s thinking, she never pushed to dump the anti-greenwashing bill and in fact still supports it. Marianne and Karl Mathiesen have more. 

 

Taking it further: In the European Parliament, the presidents of the Socialists & Democrats and Renew Europe, Iratxe García Pérez and Valérie Hayer, wrote to Roberta Metsola demanding the Parliament president take up their fight. Metsola, they said, should summon the relevant commissioners to explain themselves and raise the matter at Thursday’s summit of EU leaders in Brussels, Max reports.

 

Speaking of the Socialists: They aren’t just rebelling against von der Leyen’s attempts to water down the EU’s green agenda — they are also out to stop her cutting budget funds for training young people and the unemployed, report Gregorio Sorgi and Max.

 

What next: Teresa Ribera, the Commission’s climate boss who fought the plan to scrap the greenwashing bill, is holding a press conference later today on the clean industrial state aid framework. Will she weigh in on the mess if she’s asked about it?

 

Before that … read more from Ribera in this FT interview, in which she says EU governments should avoid giving companies direct subsidies and find other ways to help Europe’s emerging green tech firms compete with China and the U.S. “I think there is a strong need for industrial policies that go beyond state aid,” she said.

 

RUSSIAN WAR 

UKRAINE, THE MOVIE: The Swedish perm rep in Brussels is co-hosting a screening of “The Eukranian,” a film charting Ukraine’s journey toward EU membership during wartime. It follows Ukrainian Deputy PM Olha Stefanishyna, who has led the application process for Kyiv, as she travels around Europe seeking support.

 

“We are living in turbulent times,” Sweden’s EU Affairs Minister Jessica Rosencrantz, who is hosting the show alongside Equality Commissioner Hadja Lahbib, told POLITICO. “There’s a lot going on but we need to keep Ukraine on the top of our agenda … we hope to welcome Ukraine in the EU family one day.”

 

Hungary is blocking progress for Ukraine on its path to EU membership, but the movie is a chance to remind politicians and officials from the EU institutions as well as the wider public that Kyiv has made huge strides in its efforts to get ready to join the bloc, Rosencrantz said.

 

“We need to see a completely different attitude from the Hungarian side on fundamental issues,” Rosencrantz added. Does that mean taking harder action under Article 7 of the EU treaty, which could lead to suspending a country’s voting rights? “I think it’s time to discuss if perhaps we are ready to take the next step in this process. Of course that will require many members to align.”

 

Is it a good film? Rosencrantz described the movie as “beautiful,” “moving” and “strong,” showing scenes of Ukrainian officials filing their EU membership application from a bunker just a few days into the war, as bombs fell all around.

 

MORE RUSSIA SANCTIONS: European officials and diplomats are trying to get their heads around an 18th package of Russia sanctions. The proposal from Ursula von der Leyen was to include a plan to lower the Russian oil price cap to limit Vladimir Putin’s income from sales of fossil fuels.

 

But European powers failed to get that deal agreed at the G7 this month, and given that it is a measure devised by the G7 it seemed unlikely to get off the ground. Then last week, von der Leyen suggested that the high price of oil (thanks to the Israel-Iran war pushing up the price of crude) meant Putin was losing revenue already and therefore there was no pressure for lowering the cap.

 

Then again, Kallas still wants the price cap cut from $60 dollars per barrel to $45, she said last week. The Commission’s spokesperson said on Tuesday that the plan remains in the proposal and that it will be presented to leaders for discussion at their summit on Thursday.

 

Europe must keep the pressure on Russia, Sweden’s Rosencrantz said. “I hope that we will have in place the 18th sanctions package soon. This is something that Sweden is really pushing for. We know that some countries have strong opinions not least on the phasing out of Russian oil and gas but that is something that’s important to do. I dare not give specific dates.”

 

NOW READ THIS: The Israel-Iran war has revived Beijing’s interest in the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline, which would carry Russian natural gas to China, the Wall Street Journal reports.

 

DEFENSE FUNDING

DEFENSE MAP: At their summit in Brussels on Thursday, EU leaders will call on the European Commission and the EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, to present “a roadmap” on the implementation of all the defense initiatives agreed so far. But they won’t mention new funding options, according to a draft of their final statement seen by POLITICO’s Mathieu Pollet.

 

The language: The new 17-page draft of the leaders’ statement, dated June 20, now says that they will review progress at their October meeting, where they will “discuss the next steps in the implementation” of the measures agreed to boost the bloc’s defense readiness by 2030.

 

Pay later? “I don’t think we will be ready at this European Council to ask specifically for more financing options, which I think will inevitably come,” said one senior EU official. The issue is likely to trigger a tussle between capitals over whether to agree to more EU joint debt, something favored by France, Poland and countries in the south, but which makes fiscally cautious members like the Netherlands nervous.

 

Enablers: The summit conclusions on military needs now mentions explicitly the requirement to focus on so-called enablers — things like air transport, intelligence and logistics, which currently rely on U.S. capabilities and are often mentioned by EU leaders as a priority.