The leaders of the 32 member countries of the Atlantic Alliance will meet on July 7 and 8 in Ankara to address increased defense investment, a new military support package for kyiv and tensions with US President Donald Trump, who arrives at the meeting after speaking by phone with Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky about an eventual end to the war in Ukraine. In the Turkish capital, security measures have been significantly reinforced and, in the days leading up to the summit, more than 200 arrests have been recorded.
First modification: 07/05/2026 - 17:57
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NATO heads of state and government meet this Tuesday, July 7 and Wednesday, July 8 in Ankara to take stock of their progress in defense spending, promote multi-million dollar agreements with the military industry and guarantee new financial support for Ukraine, in an effort by European allies to assume more responsibility within the Alliance in the face of pressure from the United States.
"NATO is and always will be a transatlantic alliance, but we must rebalance it for the better. In close collaboration with the United States, European allies and Canada, they are assuming greater responsibility for conventional defense in Europe," said the organization's secretary general, Mark Rutte, on Wednesday, July 1.
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The summit, organized by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will dedicate Tuesday to a Defense Industrial Forum and a NATO-Ukraine Council with the presence of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, as well as a gala dinner for the leaders.
The working session of the North Atlantic Council, the political decision-making body of the Alliance, will take place on Wednesday.
The challenge of converting money into military capability
The central axis of the meeting will be to verify compliance with the commitment assumed in 2025 in The Hague: to raise investment in defense to 5% of the GDP of each member country by 2035. According to data from the Alliance, between 2016 and 2026 the European allies and Canada spent an additional 1.2 trillion dollars on defense, and in 2025 alone they increased their investment by almost 20%, about 139 billion dollars.
The challenge now is another: transform that money into concrete operational capabilities, at a time when European countries seek to dissuade Russia from a possible attack.
"The summit will focus on converting additional spending into operational capabilities and significantly expanding our defense industries," Rutte explained.
The urgency was accentuated after the Pentagon surprised its allies by announcing, in May, that it would reduce troops, ships, planes and drones that it would make available to the Alliance in the event of an attack against one of its members, to concentrate on other scenarios. This is what the US War Department has dubbed "NATO 3.0": the Europeans assume the conventional defense of their territory while the United States remains in the Alliance, but with fewer commitments.
According to a study by the British think tank specialized in security and defense International Institute for Strategic Studies, published on July 2, the American withdrawal coincides with a series of incursions attributed to Russia with drones near military bases in several European countries.
Announcements of agreements on capabilities that NATO considers priorities: space and surveillance, integrated air and missile defense, and strike capabilities are expected at Tuesday's Defense Industrial Forum.
In his meeting with Trump in the Oval Office in June, Rutte presented charts showing a backlog of European orders for US military equipment worth about $300 billion, which he cited as evidence that such cooperation generated jobs in the United States.
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Trump, "loyalty" and the Spain case
US President Donald Trump arrives in Ankara after months of criticism of his partners. Although Rutte tried to convince him of European commitment at a meeting at the White House last month, with a graph titled "The Trump Trillion" illustrating the additional spending by Europeans and Canadians, the president was adamant.
"We don't need your money, we don't need anything. I just want loyalty," Trump responded.
The discontent of the president of the United States was deepened by the refusal of several allies to support the war that Washington launched together with Israel against Iran, without consulting NATO, which began on February 28 and was stopped by a temporary ceasefire on April 8. Trump himself acknowledged that he considered not attending the summit and that he accepted because Erdogan convinced him.
Spain concentrates a good part of the reproaches. It was the partner that most clearly distanced itself from the 5% objective in The Hague: the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, maintains that an expenditure of 2.1% of GDP is enough to comply with what the Alliance demands of him and that going beyond that would affect the social budget. Trump called Spain a "disaster" as a partner and stated that "they don't want to pay anything."
The US ambassador to NATO, Matthew Whitaker, assured this week that Trump is "disappointed" with Madrid, both for the spending and for Madrid's refusal to authorize the use of the Morón and Rota bases for the operation against Iran, and warned that Washington will give an advantage in military purchases and tenders to the most committed countries.
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Ukraine: new aid package and reactivated diplomacy
Support for kyiv will be another of the pillars of the summit. The allies are expected to push for a 140 billion euro ($160 billion) military assistance package over two years, including a 60 billion ($68 billion) loan from the European Union. The United States will not contribute money to that fund, although the Europeans and Canada will continue to buy weapons, especially Patriot interceptors, to send to Ukraine.
The summit also arrives with diplomacy in motion. On Saturday, July 4, Trump spoke by phone for nearly 90 minutes with Russian President Vladimir Putin and offered to help find a solution to the war in the context of his participation in the summit, according to Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov.
That same day, Trump spoke with Zelensky, who described the exchange as "very good" and assured that there is "a real possibility of ending the war" in which "the determination of the United States is decisive." Both agreed to continue talks in Ankara.
The positions, however, remain distant. Putin reiterated that Russia will take control of the entire Donbass, a condition that kyiv rejects, and the Kremlin claimed on Friday to have captured the strategic city of Kostiantínivka, in the Donetsk region, something that Zelensky and the Ukrainian General Staff denied.
The Russian president also assured that his forces have conquered 133 Ukrainian towns so far in 2026, figures that the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), based in the United States, considered "grossly exaggerated": according to its records, Russian troops have captured or infiltrated 64 towns and some 621 square kilometers since the beginning of 2026.
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A host under internal stress
The summit is being held under strict security measures that include a crackdown on critical voices.
This Sunday, July 5, the Turkish Police arrested dozens of activists from opposition parties and left-wing organizations who called for protests against the meeting, according to the newspaper Cumhuriyet. In recent days, Turkish courts sent 178 of more than 220 detainees to preventive detention, and a total ban on demonstrations, marches and banners has been in force in Ankara since June 28.
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The Association of Contemporary Lawyers described the arrests as "political" and demanded an end to operations "intended to offer NATO an idyllic panorama."
The main opposition leader, the social democrat Özgür Özel, called them a "shame": "Everyone knows that these people have not committed any crime. Everyone knows that they will be released as soon as Donald Trump is gone," he declared.
With information from EFE, AP and Reuters
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