Under the plan outlined by Starmer, France and the U.K. would lead talks on building a “coalition of the willing” to offer security guarantees to Ukraine in case a cease-fire is reached. The two countries have for weeks been involved in building a proposal to deploy peacekeeping troops to Ukraine after a hoped-for truce has…
PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron and his American counterpart Donald Trump spoke on the phone minutes before Macron greeted European dignitaries who had gathered to discuss security in Paris. The French president’s office said the “frank conversation” lasted 20 minutes. The call came as European leaders are scrambling to come up with a unified…
The world shook this weekend as deep cracks appeared in the transatlantic alliance during a glitzy security summit in Munich. One guest was ready to capitalise: China. Top officials from the United States and Europe spent a chaotic weekend trading barbs over values, Ukraine and democracy, with US Vice-President J.D. Vance clashing with a series…
NATO split Trump’s demand is splitting the alliance’s European nations into three groupings, said Camille Grand, a former NATO assistant secretary-general who’s now a distinguished policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. A “relatively small group” that includes the Baltic nations and Poland is already spending nearly 5 percent of GDP on defense…
Mark Rutte, incoming secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), during a transition ceremony at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. Mark Rutte, the affable and meticulous former Dutch premier, has a daunting task ahead to keep the defense alliance a global force. Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty…
Trump has long complained that many NATO allies are free-riding on the U.S. and not spending enough on defense. There is growing talk that the alliance should boost its goal for members to spend at least 2 percent of their GDP on defense to 3 percent. Portugal spends only 1.55 percent of its GDP on…
On substance, the EU had little to offer Kyiv. With Hungary objecting, the bloc failed to unblock frozen Russian assets as loans for Ukraine. Zelenskyy also met with Robert Fico, the prime minister of Slovakia, another increasingly pro-Russia country like Hungary. His Brussels tour began in the European Council. Despite a worsening situation on the…
“I’m delighted to report that we are firmly on track to delivering [on] the €40 billion pledge for the coming year as agreed in Washington,” Rutte told a press conference on Wednesday, referring to the NATO leaders’ summit in July. “I can announce today that NATO allies committed €20.9 billion in military assistance to Ukraine during…