Good morning and welcome back to Firepower.

We’ve been publishing daily all week to keep you informed on the NATO and EU summits, and feeding our liveblog through our teams on the ground in The Hague and Brussels.

The entire NATO summit will be on tenterhooks to find out if Donald Trump woke up at the Huis ten Bosch palace feeling refreshed – and fully recovered from the Truth Social bender he uncorked during his flight from Washington. Everything hinges on The Donald when leaders sit down for their sole working session at 10:30am today.

Never mind the rhetoric from some European capitals about strategic autonomy; the tireless efforts to stroke Trump’s ego and lavish him in comfort show how Europe remains at Washington's whim on defence.

What’s in today’s edition:

MARK RUTTE was surely embarrassed when Trump posted screenshots of fawning texts from the NATO leader lavishing the US president with praise. But a bit of personal humiliation would be a small price to pay if his shameless flattery succeeds in convincing Trump to view NATO’s fractious deal on spending targets as a mighty personal victory. "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,” Rutte wrote, even mimicking Trump's writing style. The real humiliation would be if it doesn’t work.

WHAT’S ACTUALLY IN THE DEAL? Rutte has repeatedly stressed that all 32 NATO allies are ready to commit to spending 5% of GDP on defence. On paper, that delivers on a key Trump demand for all to pay their fair share. But dig into the details and there’s a lot of questions about just how serious the whole deal is. Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez (who apparently plans to sign the pledge) keeps telling everyone his country has no plans to budge above 2.1%.

To be clear, the commitment is not all show. Many allies appear ready to spend VERY REAL MONEY, and some have already made budget plans to hit the higher targets. But there’s still reason to think it’s not just the Spaniards who will go on spending far less.

THANKS FOR IRAN. Rutte has tried to minimise discussion of US attacks on Iran, which drew split reactions from alliance members, by insisting that the focus in The Hague is on military investments and support for Ukraine. But he was full of praise for the airstrikes in his texts with Trump, sending congratulations for "decisive" and "truly extraordinary" action in Iran – something “no one else dared do” that “makes us all safer”. Was that puffery, personal opinion, or the view of NATO?

ARTICLE 5 ‘NUANCES’. Sticking to his habit, Trump once again cast doubt over his commitment to the alliance, refusing to discuss his understanding of the alliance’s Article 5 mutual defence clause when asked by reporters aboard Air Force One.

Trump’s remarks raised some eyebrows in The Hague, but NATO brass were quick to downplay them. Rutte told reporters that he has “NO DOUBT” that Washington remains committed to mutual defence. Meanwhile, Trump promised more clarity upon arrival in The Hague. We’re all ears.

WHAT PLAYS IN KYIV? Trump may score a political victory with new spending targets, but Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy is still hunting for anything that he can sell as a win back home – even a message from Trump that Russia is “VERY BAD” might suffice. He's unlikely to get much from the main leaders-only summit meeting in the morning, but the summit sidelines are where diplomacy happens and deals get done. A crucial one-on-one with the US president may be in the works. And Zelenskyy is also scheduled for an afternoon meeting with the leaders France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and the UK.

NATO PATH. Remarks about Ukraine’s “irreversible path to NATO membership” used to be ubiquitous at alliance gatherings. So Rutte’s invocation of the phrase stood out only because of how little anyone else is talking about it.

MAKE MORE WEAPONS, PLEASE. “It is time to move from pledge to product," Ruben Brekelmans, the Dutch defence minister told a room full of defence industry execs yesterday. Brekelmans struck a note repeated by other government officials, who’ve been pleading with industry to churn out more weapons. Even though years of warfare in Ukraine has depleted NATO stockpiles, production lines are still under heavy strain and prices remain high.

“Theres not enough supply to answer the demand,” a senior NATO official told Firepower this week. Take in-demand Patriot air-defence systems, for example. The lead time for delivery of a Patriot battery is currently seven years, according to Admiral Pierre Vandier, NATO’s supreme allied commander transformation.

DRONES or PATRIOT MISSILES? NATO officials have been stressing to allied military planners that stockpiles of lower-cost drones may well be the most efficient way to combat potential attackers. When setting capability targets for allied militaries, NATO tells the countries that a “heavy brigade will consist usually of X number of tanks, etcetera,” Jean-Charles Ellermann-Kingombe, NATO’s assistant secretary general for innovation, told Euractiv at the summit. “But if you can deliver the same effect at the end of the day, with maybe fewer tanks, but add a number of UAVs instead, you have that possibility.”

IMPACT FIRST. Ellermann-Kingombe said it’s all “about providing effect to defend us”. That idea is also known as the “effect-based operations” principle, where the impact of the weapons holds more value, regardless of whether it’s cheap kit or renowned (and pricey) legacy high-end systems.

That may sound fairly straightforward, but NATO diplomats and military officials have been telling Firepower for months that it's a big change for NATO’s new capability targets – country-by-country lists of the military gear allies are expected to purchase. Those people all said planning fundamentally shifted after combat in Ukraine demonstrated how innovative weapons – and drones in particular – could deliver major impact while being both cheaper and faster to produce than much of the sophisticated equipment that’s long featured in Western arsenals.

All, however, stressed that high-end weapons systems and innovative products would be complementary, not replace each other.

NEXT WAR IS IN KOSOVO. Warnings about the Russian threat to NATO usually focus on the Baltic, but Croatian Defence Minister Ivan Anušić told Firepower yesterday that he fears the next conflict “will start in Kosovo”. Anušić warned that an emboldened Russia could use its leverage in Serbia, where the government is a “proxy” for Moscow, to rekindle the conflicts that ripped apart the former Yugoslavia. “If Russia succeeds in conquering Ukraine, the next country and area in Europe [on their list] will 100% be in Southeast Europe, where Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo are.” He also labelled Hungary a “proxy” as well. Harsh words against a military ally.

Keep up with our team's latest reports from The Hague and Brussels.

WILL THE EU HAVE A SHOT AT SPACE (LAW)? The EU Space Act the Commission is presenting today isn’t going to do much to thwart an incoming asteroid now on course to potentially smash into the moon in 2032 and send debris hurtling towards Earth. It will, however, set the bloc on course to clear the world’s first comprehensive package of rules for satellites and rocket launches.

THIS WEEK’S OTHER SUMMIT. The latest draft conclusions for the EU summit later this week, seen by Euractiv, include a request for the European Investment Bank to broaden its defence portfolio to make more funding available to defence companies. The document also calls on the Parliament and Council to move on a review of cohesion policy towards defence and the proposal for defence-related investments in the EU budget. The Council is asking the Commissions and EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas for a roadmap to implement the White Paper. In short, expect new pledges for defence funding avenues, as most EU leaders will arrive in Brussels fresh off signing new defence spending pledges at the NATO summit.

MEPs AGREE TO TRIAL THE COUNCIL. EU lawmakers yesterday voted to legally challenge the Council’s decision to bypass the Parliament while fast-tracking the €150 billion SAFE joint defence loan programme. It’s now up to Parliament President Roberta Metsola to launch the case at the Court of Justice of the European Union. Metsola’s deadline to act is 21 August.

SLOVAKIA reaffirmed that it will not stand in the way of its NATO allies increasing defence spending, but will move at its own pace, Slovak President Peter Pellegrini said before departing for The Hague. If Bratislava spends more than 2% of its GDP on defence next year, the extra money will mainly go to projects helping both the military and civilians, the Slovak president said.

BERLIN’s BIG BUDGET. Once-frugal Germany will take on some €850 billion in debt over the next few years to increase military spending to about €150 billion per year in 2029, more than triple the current €52 billion budget. That would get Germany to NATO's new 3.5% of GDP target for core defence. This year alone, Germany also plans to spend €8.3 billion on military aid for Ukraine, the highest amount since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT: Yesterday’s edition of Firepower made an error by mixing up the results of a Slovakian opinion poll about the country’s NATO membership. Contrary to what we wrote, the poll in fact found that half the population supports staying in the alliance and opposes the idea of declaring “neutrality”. We regret the error.

NATO

• Leaders’ doorsteps in The Hague start at 8:00, including a joint appearance of Rutte and Trump scheduled for 9:55
• Summit Declaration approval will follow the leaders’ sole working session 10:30-13:00
• Rutte’s press conference scheduled for 14:00, followed by national debriefs, including Trump’s highly anticipated presser
• A Coalition of the Willing meeting between Ukraine and leaders of E5 countries (France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and the UK) is scheduled for 15:30

European Union

• Parliament’s SEDE committee meets for a joint hearing with FISC titled “The European Defence Union: Tax Matters” from 14:30-16:30
• Political Security Committee is getting an update on Operation ASPIDES and discusses foreign policy of the EU-Moldova Summit taking place 4 July
• EU Defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius presents the Strategy on Space Economy and the EU Space Act

Thank you for reading.

You can contact us at defence@euractiv.com. Each team member is available at firstname.lastname@euractiv.com.

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