Rishi Sunak heads to Lithuania today for the Nato leaders’ summit (which means he will be missing another Prime Minister’s Questions). The trip comes after Sunak met one-on-one with president Biden at 10 Downing Street – a visit which is being heralded in government as a success after the pair avoided amplifying a lingering disagreement over the US government’s transfer of cluster bombs to Ukraine.
While Sunak was critical of the use of the weapons ahead of the visit (a legal obligation of the UK government as a result of its membership of the Convention on Cluster Munitions) he chose not to bring it up and reprimand Biden on the visit. This allowed the US president to wax lyrical about the relationship being ‘rock solid’.
The window of opportunity to try to end the conflict and help Ukraine could be short
As for the Nato summit, the reason it is being held in Vilnius is, of course, down to the rotation of locations for these events. But it also comes at a time of change in the EU’s political geography where the countries in the east are growing in geo-strategic influence.
So far, the Baltic States have taken the more hawkish position on Russia when it comes to the Ukraine war (as my interview last year with Lithuania’s foreign minister shows). The fact that Poland plans to increase its defence spending to 4 per cent of GDP this year – which would, on current figures, make it the highest level in Nato – is another indicator of the shifting power balance. There are some signs that it is having an impact on countries to the West such as France, with Emmanuel Macron appearing to harden his position. In May, he suggested for the first time that there ought to be a ‘path’ to Nato membership for Ukraine.
While it’s Sweden’s membership of Nato that looks imminent (with Erdogan dropping his resistance), membership for Ukraine is one of the topics that will be on the agenda in the coming days. US resistance means it remains unlikely to be granted anytime soon, with Biden preferring to adopt an approach more akin to the US relationship with Israel and supply it with what the country needs where possible.
Sunak will use the summit to call for more countries to spend at least two per cent of their GDP on defence. Should countries such as France, Germany and Italy fail to match those already doing so, it will only add to the sense that the power balance is shifting when it comes to those leading the conversation about what comes next.
However, one of the reasons for urgency is that ultimately, even if the more hawkish voices in Europe are growing in strength, there is an acknowledgement that the window of opportunity to try to end the conflict and help Ukraine could be short. The date of the next American election, which could lead to a change in the US foreign policy approach if the Republicans win, is weighing heavily on the minds of the various leaders in attendance this week.
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