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 four things to watch for at the NATO summit in Vilnius on July 11-12: what Ukraine can expect; Sweden’s membership prospects; the alliance’s defense plans; and the bloc’s relationship with other partners.

Brief #1: What Will Ukraine Get?

What You Need To Know: For Ukraine, this summit is about avoiding another “Bucharest” or “Budapest.” “Bucharest” refers to the 2008 NATO summit in the Romanian capital at which the military alliance famously stated that Ukraine (and Georgia) would become members but avoided any specific timetable or pathway.

Everyone is acutely aware that the NATO summit declaration in Vilnius won’t invite Kyiv to become a member then and there.

No one around the table has any appetite for giving a country in the middle of a war Article 5 guarantees (making an attack on any NATO member an attack on all). Instead, they will try to find a way to promise Ukraine membership once things look better.

That’s where “Budapest” comes into play.

It’s a reference to a trio of 1994 memorandums in which Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States gave security assurances to Ukraine (and Belarus and Kazakhstan) in exchange for Kyiv giving up its Soviet-era nuclear weapons.

While Ukraine awaits possible NATO membership, it wants “guarantees” or “assurances” that the West will continue to support it militarily. Quite how this might be spelled out will remain one of the summit’s head-scratchers.

Drilling Down

• Most NATO officials I’ve spoken to quietly concede that there is really just one ironclad security guarantee: NATO membership. That’s something that Finland and Sweden realized (more on that in a moment) when applying to join so quickly after the invasion. All other measures, such as security assurances, can essentially only be offered on a bilateral basis by alliance members.
• It could be that a group of nations in the run-up to the summit or in Vilnius will pledge to support Ukraine militarily for “as long at it takes” by providing more weapons, ammunition, or even training for Ukrainian troops. Don’t rule out the possibility of a separate Group of Seven statement to that effect either, especially as all members of that group will be in Vilnius. (Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will also attend.)
• What NATO will offer as an organization is a pot of 500 million euros ($538 million) a year for the foreseeable future to assist Ukraine on various military expenditures. This sum could potentially grow in the future, too.
• Otherwise, the biggest issue lies in semantics: How can a declaration be written so as to avoid another “Bucharest” and not disappoint Ukraine but at the same time reassure cautious countries like the United States and Germany? They are wary of any membership commitment in wartime against a nuclear-armed Russia, as evidenced by U.S. President Joe Biden’s warning that there’s not “unanimity” on Ukrainian membership “at this moment, in the middle of a war.”
• One way might be to state that Kyiv will join once “conditions” or “consequences” allow, and perhaps even to describe them explicitly. It could be that some sort of pathway will also be spelled out -- for example that NATO allies will issue an assessment or return to the question at the next summit, in Washington, D.C., next summer.
• Ukraine is also fighting to avoid a requirement for a Membership Action Plan (MAP) before it can join. A MAP is a sort of NATO membership “antechamber” in which the aspirant gets a tailor-made national program to prepare for future membership, and it could cover not only defense aspects but also political, security, and legal issues that the alliance thinks need to be addressed. Many of the current Central and Eastern European NATO members needed a MAP before joining. But there are indications from officials that Kyiv won’t need one -- just as Finland and Sweden weren’t required to have one before starting the membership process.
• In the end, the biggest question is whether Ukrainians will be satisfied with the outcome of the summit. While it is very much expected that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will show up, there have been persistent rumors that he is toying with the idea of not coming if he feels the summit isn’t ambitious enough. Still, most expect him to be there and to co-chair the inaugural NATO-Ukraine Council -- an updated political relationship in which Kyiv will be sitting at the table as a sort of coequal, with the right to call meetings with the military alliance whenever it sees fit.

Brief #2: Sweden's NATO Accession?

What You Need To Know: This is an issue that not many NATO officials expected would drag on for so long. Sweden applied to join alongside Finland in the spring of 2022 as a direct consequence of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and many diplomats expected the process to be wrapped up by autumn.

But Ankara had other plans.

Before green-lighting membership, Turkey demanded that the Nordic pair, or more specifically Sweden, lift an arms embargo against Turkey, update its counterterror legislation, and extradite individuals whom Turkey has deemed to have been engaged in terrorist activities.

While Turkey agreed that both Sweden and Finland would join at the NATO summit in Madrid last year, Ankara withheld ratification of the Accession Protocols until progress was made.

Issues with Sweden, notably demonstrations in Stockholm that included the burning of a Koran, particularly strained Ankara-Stockholm relations before Finland decoupled and joined NATO alone in early April.

Drilling Down

• There are essentially two ways this can go: There could be a repeat of the Madrid summit in which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan meets with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson in Vilnius a day before the start of the summit to seek an agreement, paving the way for ratification in the Turkish parliament in July or the autumn; or the pair could end up holding “constructive talks” in the Lithuanian capital that conclude with more work still to be done at various diplomatic levels.
• NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg met with the foreign ministers and intelligence and security chiefs of Finland, Sweden, and Turkey on July 6 to try to iron out lingering details ahead of Vilnius. He described the meeting afterward as “productive” and suggested it is “possible to have a positive decision” the week of the summit.
• NATO officials I’ve spoken to on condition of anonymity believe Erdogan still would like to be viewed as a key statesman and agree on something once full media attention is directed at the summit. They note that expectations were low approaching the Madrid summit as well, but say face-to-face talks at the highest level then paved the way for an agreement.
• They do, however, note that there might be another meeting needed as well: between Erdogan and Biden, at which the latter could promise American deliveries of F-16 fighter jets to Ankara -- a move that many believe could be deal clincher.
• But more Koran burnings in Sweden, for instance, could still prove to be a potential spoiler. Turkey and much of the Muslim world reacted with fury when permission was granted for someone to burn the Muslim holy book outside a Stockholm mosque on June 28 in a protest to coincide with Eid al-Adha, one of the Islamic calendar’s holiest events.
• The protest was permitted by a Swedish court after similar requests had been turned down, with authorities citing national security risks. At least three permits for the burning of religious books have been lodged in recent days, and the Swedish authorities now face a real headache. Diplomats I’ve spoken to say that Swedish officials will tell their Turkish counterparts that the latest Koran burner at least was charged with agitation against an ethnic or national group, and that they plan similar charges if any similar incidents happen.
• If there is a deal in Vilnius, it is widely thought that the Turkish parliament could still approve the ratification instrument before it goes into recess by October. Hungary has not ratified Sweden’s accession protocol, either -- mainly in solidarity with Ankara. While there are indications that Hungarian lawmakers postponed the vote to their autumn session, Budapest has repeatedly noted that it won’t be the last country to ratify; so don’t quite rule out Sweden becoming NATO member number 32 already this month.

Brief #3: Sorting Out NATO's Core Tasks

What You Need To Know: Perhaps the single most important decision that will presumably be taken at the NATO summit is the unanimous approval of the military alliance’s first comprehensive defense plans since the end of the Cold War.

These represent NATO’s bread and butter: How to defend every inch of the 31 member states’ territories. Four thousand pages of classified plans should be green-lighted, covering three major regions: the North, meaning the Atlantic and the Arctic regions; the central region that essentially covers Europe from the Baltics to the Alps; and a southern region extending south from the Alps to the Mediterranean and including NATO states around the Black Sea. Of course, there are also subsections focusing on, for example, cybersecurity.

If all goes well and the plans are approved at the summit, even more detailed planning will follow that informs battalions as to exactly what patch of territory or sea they should defend in case of attack.

Drilling Down

• These plans were essentially supposed to be agreed ahead of the summit, but there have been some obstacles -- mostly involving Turkey. Ankara has, for example, insisted on calling the Bosphorus “the Turkish strait” in the plans and also wanted to put more emphasis on fighting terrorism rather than simply focusing on the threat posed by Russia.
• But the big issue remains how to go from plans to reality, and that ultimately means: Is there enough military gear, soldiers, and money to achieve all of that? Now, NATO is good at making commitments. In Madrid last year, the allies agreed that they would have 100,000 troops ready to deploy within 10 days and 300,000 inside of a month. But they still haven’t reached that lofty target.
• It has fared even worse when it comes to defense spending. At the NATO summit in Wales back in 2014, a pledge was made that every ally would spend 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense by 2024 -- a figure all NATO members managed to reach during the Cold War. One year before that pledge should have been fulfilled, the alliance as a whole isn’t even close to achieving it.
• Only seven countries -- Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the United Kingdom, and the United States -- reached the 2 percent threshold in 2022. In 2023, newest NATO member Finland will join the club, as will Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. Germany should get there next year and France in 2025. But several NATO officials point out that quite a few countries might reach the 2 percent target, only to drop under it again shortly thereafter.
• Thus, the new pledge in Vilnius. The 2 percent target should be “the floor” rather than the “ceiling.” That’s no problem for countries like Estonia, Poland, and the United States, which all spend 3 percent or more. But for others, it might be just another empty promise.
• Another issue is that NATO will once again need to return to basics. After 20 years of largely guerrilla fighting in Afghanistan, there is a perceived need for investment in jets, tanks, and artillery -- and this was an acute need even before many NATO allies started sending such military hardware to Ukraine.
• There is also the production of artillery. Even though European countries are slowly scaling up, largely to provide Kyiv with more rounds, Russia is still firing Europe’s monthly artillery production rate (currently estimated at 20,000-25,000 shells per month) in a single day in Ukraine.

Brief #4: All Of NATO's Other Friends

What You Need To Know: All the spotlight at the summit will doubtless be on Ukraine, but there are other non-NATO countries present in Vilnius, too.

On the first day, July 11, there is an informal North Atlantic Council (NAC) meeting together with “Partners at risk” -- in this case, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Georgia, and Moldova -- all of which will be represented by their respective foreign ministers.

On the second and final day, July 12, there will be a NAC meeting with the leaders of the four “Indo-Pacific Partners” -- Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea -- repeating a format first used in Madrid in 2022.

The Indo-Pacific meeting very much reflects the growing worry within the alliance about China; but there are divisions inside the club as to whether NATO is the appropriate forum when it comes to addressing issues pertaining to Beijing.

Drilling Down

• One clear result of this internal tension is that NATO still hasn’t reached consensus on opening a NATO office in Tokyo, with France no big fan of the idea. At the summit, however, NATO will draw up new cooperation programs with the Indo-Pacific quartet that cover areas like maritime, cyber, and new tech.
• Combining Bosnia-Herzegovina, Georgia, and Moldova into one session is rather odd. The first two are NATO aspirants that, like Ukraine, have offers of future membership but no concrete timetables. Moldova, on the other hand, is constitutionally neutral and its population is deeply divided on potential membership.
• For Georgia, it’s also a bit of downgrade. Tbilisi has until recently gone “hand-in-hand” with Ukraine when it comes to NATO membership; not so anymore. NATO officials I’ve spoken to say this “decoupling” simply reflects a reality that the Ukrainian leadership is currently pushing harder for NATO membership.
• Speeches like the one made by the Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili at the Globsec summit in Bratislava, in which he blamed the war in Ukraine on NATO enlargement, certainly haven’t helped. But what I hear from the NATO corridors in Brussels is that Tbilisi needs to do more to fix Georgia-Ukraine relations and show greater political support for Kyiv. The hope is still that Ukraine can offer a precedent for Georgia going forward on its NATO path.
• At the summit, the allies will continue to pledge money to boost Georgia’s defense capabilities, notably in the area known as CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear defense) and to refurbish a number of training facilities in the Caucasus country.
• For Bosnia-Herzegovina, the expectation is of an agreement on a 30 million-euro support package, financing 12 projects in fields such as cybersecurity, air medical evacuation, and boosting its military police.
• With Moldova, NATO has devised a so-called “enhanced defense-capacity-building package” focused on fighting disinformation, responding to cyberthreats, and modernizing the country’s defense institutions.
• Interestingly, in light of the recent unrest in northern Kosovo in which NATO KFOR troops were attacked, that country is not formally on the agenda. KFOR’s presence has now been boosted by 500 soldiers, bringing the total number of peacekeepers to 4,300; but no discussions are expected on that issue at the summit unless one of the leaders explicitly brings it up.

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

Until next time,

Richard 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 two major issues: the EU’s reluctance to use its new anti-circumvention tool and the lessons learned from an EU summit two decades ago

Brief #1: The EU Creates A Sanctions Tool It Likely Won't Use

What You Need To Know: When EU member states finally approved the bloc's latest sanctions package against Russia on June 23, perhaps the most interesting feature was a new anti-circumvention framework aimed at third countries. Although this framework for the moment very much remains an empty canvas, it has now given Brussels the legal tools to do two things: Draw up a list of products made in the bloc that it believes are being sent to Russia via third countries, and another register in which third countries can be named and hence will no longer be able to import things from the EU.

This move will, in theory, bring the EU closer to the "secondary sanctions" that the United States is already applying around the globe -- a framework designed to prevent or restrict third countries from trading with countries subject to U.S. sanctions. And there is little doubt that the new EU tool might come in handy going forward.

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland have all pointed out that, in 2022, exports of potential dual-use goods -- items that can be used for both civilian and military purposes -- to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan grew more than 62 percent, 83 percent, and 30 percent, respectively, compared to the previous year.

The EU’s sanctions implementation envoy, David O'Sullivan, has in recent months traveled extensively to both Central Asia and places such as Armenia and Georgia to hammer home the message that items, or parts of them, imported from the EU to other countries have been found in Russian military equipment and weapons used in its war against Ukraine. A senior EU official with knowledge of the matter, speaking under the condition of anonymity, noted that “we are seeing circumvention. Look at the envoy and where he is traveling. There is evidence that something is happening.”

Deep Background: The big question, however, is if the EU will ever use this instrument. The smart money is that it won’t, and that the lists will remain empty. Pretty much all of the EU officials I have spoken to essentially say the same thing: It is a last-resort measure, only to be used when all other things have failed -- notably, more intense diplomacy.

I hear that this is a tool designed for O’Sullivan to threaten the countries he travels to with, but nothing more. And people familiar with the topic also explain to me that Brussels isn’t at all keen to push countries into the arms of Russia and China. This is the sort of tool that would accomplish exactly that.

As evidence, they point to countries like Serbia and Georgia that, despite their refusal to align with EU sanctions on Moscow -- even to the point of allowing Russian flights to land on their soil -- still haven’t faced any negative consequences from Brussels for their actions.

Finally, there is the issue of unanimity, which is needed for any listing under this new framework. Right now, it is hard to see all 27 EU member states seeing eye to eye on this.

Drilling Down

• One of the reasons for the skepticism is that Germany, backed notably by Italy, worked very hard to make the sanctions text on this issue longer and more complicated. Several EU officials familiar with the matter told me that Germany was even keen to remove the possibility of listing specific third countries, but that this was resisted by most other EU member states.
• When the sanctions package with this proposal was first presented by the European Commission in early May, there were hopes in Brussels that it would be agreed on rather quickly, as it wasn’t the most comprehensive measures ever proposed by the EU. Yet it took nearly two months to reach an agreement, largely due to Berlin continuously insisting on various clarifications of the anti-circumvention language.
• Having seen both the original text, as proposed by the European Commission, and the final version agreed by member states, it is clear just how difficult it will be to do anything with this anti-circumvention instrument. And it is obvious that the EU will first exhaust all diplomatic tools available before any restrictive measures are proposed.
• Both documents spell out that “the [EU] recognizes the efforts made by national authorities in many third countries to stem the flow of goods, technology, and services that are covered by the restrictive measures adopted by the [EU] in response to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. The [EU] should further support third countries in that endeavor” -- interestingly, the final agreed text adds “with all available means” at the end.
• The adopted text also outlines other steps that first must be taken before a third country is targeted, which includes that the EU's foreign policy chief and the European Commission must brief the member states on all technical details and outreach actions taken before any proposal for sanctioning is to be submitted.
• It is also stated that such info must include “available trade data demonstrating that the alternative measures taken have been ineffective, as well as information about the efforts carried out by the [EU] to address the matter with the third country in question, and a clear indication that such efforts were not successful.”
• But that’s not all. Before a decision is taken, Brussels must also “inform and actively seek the views of the government of that third country on the basis of the preliminary findings set out in the technical analysis by the [European] Commission and the [EU's] intended remedial action.”
• Finally, it is clearly stated that the EU member states should be “informed of all steps of the engagement and of the outcome” and that a final decision only can be taken unanimously “after the final outreach to that third country has been concluded.”

Brief #2: The Ghosts Of Thessaloniki

What You Need To Know: EU enlargement is back in vogue. EU ministers and officials are busy discussing what an EU of up to 35 member states would look like. People I speak to in Brussels excitedly point out that the portfolio of the EU enlargement commissioner, which will be vacant in 2024, is one of the most sought after, with several EU member states wanting their candidate to get the job.

The buzz is due to the way Ukraine has responded to the full-scale invasion by Russia last year. In historic speed, the country became an EU candidate country together with Moldova last year. Both have continued to reform in recent months, despite the political hardships they are facing, and all indicators point to the pair starting EU accession talks at the end of this year.

But there is a cautionary tale here that is worth revisiting. June 21 marked the 20th anniversary of the Thessaloniki summit. Now, the EU loves a summit. If there is one thing everyone in Brussels can agree on, it is that there are too many of them, with at least one gathering happening every month. But this summit, in Greece’s second city two decades ago, was historic.

It was the first-ever EU-Western Balkans summit, and the outcome was that all countries emerging from the former Yugoslavia, plus Albania, would become EU members. Then, much like now, there was hope and excitement all around. Granted, the region had just come out of the devastating wars of the 1990s, but now they were all gathered, smiling and ready to cooperate.

And the EU itself was supercharged. Only a few months before, the treaty of Athens was signed, paving the way for eight Central and Eastern European countries, including the former Yugoslav republic of Slovenia, to join the bloc in 2004. And a year before, on January 1, 2002, the first euro notes and coins started circulating in 12 EU states. The future looked bright.

Deep Background: I recently reread the Thessaloniki declaration and watched the final press conference from that gathering. And it is palpable how much has changed. And how much hasn’t.

Perhaps the key line in the declaration was that “the EU reiterates its unequivocal support to the European perspective of the Western Balkan countries. The future of the Balkans is within the European Union.” Back then, this was quite something. But perhaps the frustrating part is that there hasn’t been much more movement in the last 20 years.

When EU leaders met in Brussels last week, they adopted summit conclusions stating “recalling the EU-Western Balkans Thessaloniki Summit Declaration of 21 June 2003 and its previous conclusions, notably those of 23-24 June 2022, the European Council reiterates its full and unequivocal commitment to the EU membership perspective of the Western Balkans and its support for the acceleration of the accession process and the related reforms.” Not really much of a difference.

Yes, not all has remained the same. Croatia became a member back in 2013, and all countries in the region, apart from Kosovo, which back in 2003 hadn’t yet achieved independence, are now official EU candidate countries. But only two -- Montenegro and Serbia -- have started accession talks, and the last time any of them opened or closed any of the 30-plus policy chapters in the negotiations was two years ago. Simply put: No Western Balkan country will join the EU anytime soon.

Drilling Down

• Part of the problem is the EU itself. Two years after Thessaloniki, French and Dutch voters rejected a new EU constitution, plunging the bloc into an institutional crisis. Then, problem after problem appeared. The eurozone almost imploded during the financial crisis that started in 2008; the migration crisis of 2015-16 nearly tore the bloc apart; Brexit; the pandemic; and the Russian invasion all made the EU focus elsewhere but on the Balkans.
• To illustrate this, just go back to the Thessaloniki declaration. In the final paragraph it states that: “We have agreed to meet periodically at our level, within the framework of an EU-Western Balkan forum, in order to discuss issues of common concern, to review progress of the countries of the region in their road to Europe, and to exchange views on major developments in the EU.”
• When did the next EU-Western Balkans summit take place? In Sofia, in 2018! Since then, the summits have happened almost on a regular basis, but they have been rather unhappy affairs. In one of them, in Slovenia in 2021, some western EU member states didn’t even want to mention the word “enlargement” in the final communique.
• Contrast that with the triumphant positivity back in 2003. The Greek foreign minister, Giorgios Papandreou, confidently noted that the countries will be part of “our family” and added: “In the Balkans, people have lived through wars, they have live through times of hope that have been dashed. So, what we are providing them is a very secure road of getting there.” The European Commission president at the time, Romano Prodi, was even more cocksure: “There is no unknown future. There is a known future, a very well-known one -- they will be part of Europe. I fought for that.”
• But the optimism was apparent also among the Balkan politicians gathered at the press conference -- producing quotes that with hindsight look comical. The Bosnian foreign minister, Mladen Ivanic, for example, noted that the “Balkans is the place where cooperation is normal,” even though his own country over the last decade has been deadlocked due in large part to its two entities divided over ethnic lines.
• And the president of Macedonia, Boris Trajkovski, said that “the Western Balkans now is moving towards the EU, and it was necessary for the EU to move towards the Western Balkans.” Nothing was mentioned of the naming issue between Skopje and Athens that made him represent the “former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” in Thessaloniki and would be solved by renaming the country to North Macedonia first 15 years later.
• But perhaps the biggest irony were the words of the EU's foreign policy chief at the time, Javier Solana, announcing at the final presser that Belgrade and Pristina “clearly expressed the readiness to enter a practical dialogue on issues of mutual interest and that dialogue will begin shortly.” Due to growing tensions and other developments, those talks didn’t start until 2011.
• And despite some deals between the pair, relations between Kosovo and Serbia are currently at an all-time low: At a recent EU-mediated crisis meeting in Brussels lasting four hours, the leaders didn’t even meet; the EU is mulling whether to freeze some EU funds for Kosovo; and there are serious talks that an international conference is needed to solve the impasse.
• After the meeting, almost 20 years to the day after Solana’s hopeful announcement in Thessaloniki, the current EU foreign policy chief and fellow Spaniard, Josef Borrell, glumly told the Brussels press: “We have called on Kosovo and Serbia many times to de-escalate tensions and to return to the process of normalization of relations,” adding: “Unfortunately, so far, all what we have been witnessing is just the opposite.”

Looking Ahead

On July 6, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg will invite the foreign ministers of Finland, Sweden, and Turkey, as well as the intelligence and security chiefs from the three countries, to Brussels in a last-ditch bid to get some sort of agreement on Sweden’s accession to the military alliance ahead of or during the Vilnius summit on July 11-12.

The prospects, however, look grim. Hungary, which also has not ratified Stockholm’s accession protocol, recently announced that its parliament won’t vote on it until its autumn legislative session. Turkey has also demanded that Sweden do more, especially against various Kurdish groups that Ankara believes are engaged in terrorism. The burning of the Koran outside a Stockholm Mosque last week also incensed Ankara and is likely to further complicate the situation.

This week, I am in Tallinn to interview Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas -- one of the most outspoken leaders in Europe -- whose name is often mentioned for various top positions in the EU and NATO. The interview will focus on the upcoming NATO summit, the ongoing war in Ukraine, the chances for Kyiv to join the alliance, and how she sees the future of Russia and Belarus in the wake of Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin's recent mutiny.

Check out RFE/RL in the coming days for coverage on all of these issues.

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

Until next time,

Richard Jozwiak

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