On Wednesday, May 13, the Romanian capital hosted the summit of the Bucharest Nine, a Romanian-Polish initiative launched in 2015. This year, in addition to the traditional participants of the format, the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi, the leaders of Finland and Sweden, as well as the Secretary General of the Alliance Mark Rutte took part in it. The results of the consultations were made public by the participants declaration, in which Russia was called the main threat. The document, however, the representative of Hungary did not support it — stated that the decision on accession will be made by the new government in Budapest.
Details of the summit are in the report LB.ua.
A format that doesn’t care
From the very beginning, the Bucharest format was conceived as a platform for the coordination of the countries of NATO’s eastern flank on the eve of the Alliance’s major summits. In fact, it includes nine states: Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia. As a rule, a representative of the US administration took part in the summits as a sign of the strength of the transatlantic partnership. Unofficially, the appearance of this format was also stimulated by the occupation of Crimea by Russia in 2014.
For a certain time, the initiative practically froze – which, however, cannot be said about the security tension in the region. But after the outbreak of full-scale war in 2022, high-level meetings intensified again. Thus, in 2023, the then US President Joe Biden personally participated in the Bucharest Nine, and in the future, close coordination with the format was supported by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. That same year, while Donald Trump and his top advisers went on a visit to China, Undersecretary of State for International Security and Arms Control Thomas J. DiNanno arrived in Bucharest. The interlocutors from the official delegations did not hesitate to joke: “He very assured that he was proud to be here – apparently, the opportunity to go on a foreign business trip finally arose.
NATO 3.0
The main topic officially became the transatlantic relations and the security of Europe, however, the tone of the statements on this topic testified more to their audit than to the discussion of common goals.
Today’s meeting reflects our shared commitment to strengthening security and defense cooperation along NATO’s entire eastern flank, recognizing the strategic continuity of space from the Black Sea to the Baltic Sea, as well as the Nordic and Arctic regions, and our determination to implement the concept NATO 3.0 through building a stronger Europe within a stronger NATO. The transatlantic connection remains the foundation of our collective security,” said the joint statement following the summit.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte emphasized that Europe must be stronger and recalled that the results of the summit in The Hague included commitments to increase defense spending to 5% of GDP. The Hague was actually mentioned very often: during the opening, during the press conference, and on the sidelines. And it was more like a rebuke. Like, “we did as the USA wanted, while they themselves turned out to be not too loyal,” an interlocutor from one official delegation shared his impressions.
This opinion was then repeated by the Secretary General of NATO, but in a more diplomatic manner.
This is a transatlantic alliance, but we need a stronger Europe and a stronger NATO, we need to increase defense spending and take more responsibility for conventional defense.
Strong and continuous support to Ukraine will continue to be a priority of the summit in Ankara,” said Mark Rutte during the press conference.
Déjà vu, as the French say
In parallel with the summit in Bucharest, the Security Conference took place, where one could hear much more frank assessments than those that the leaders of the states can afford. For example, during a panel devoted to scenarios for ending the war in Ukraine, a senior researcher at a conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation and Donald Trump’s adviser James Carafano, when asked about the region, effectively replied, “I don’t care.” He then continued that it was a joke. And what in real politics it is worth asking questions so that regional challenges concern global players. But it didn’t sound like a joke.
During subsequent panel discussions, the difference in priority assessments only grew. German diplomat, president of the Munich Security Conference, Wolfgang Ischinger, directly reprimanded Trump’s advisor Carafano, that it is not the first time that the USA does not comply with agreements with the EU and single-handedly adjusts the priorities of the collective strategy.
I have a feeling that my French colleagues call deja vu. I was ambassador to the United States after September 11, 2001, and along with other European nations, after very intense discussions, I supported the United States in its effort to eliminate the threat of the Taliban from Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden and those on the border. European countries decided to send troops to Afghanistan, which was a very difficult step for my country. A few months later, the United States, without informing its allies, already has another target – Iraq. In other words, 20 years ago we had a huge problem with aligning priorities, and that’s why I’m having this deja vu now. It seemed to me that we agreed: the only element of threat to European security and the transatlantic alliance is an attempt to change the borders in Europe, annex Crimea, attack Ukraine, occupy large areas of Donbas and threaten Gdańsk. We believed we had an agreement that this would continue to be our top priority. The moment President Trump makes a decision [on Iran] … we are getting a signal from the United States that the supply of ammunition and additional weapons can no longer be carried out because the weapons must be moved to a new theater of war in the Middle East,” Ischinger said.
Center of gravity
The change in American priorities regarding Europe is not news for a long time. Back in October last year, the US announced that it was reducing its military presence in Romania. About what LB.ua in detail wrote here.
And on the eve of the G9 summit, the US administration announced the partial withdrawal of American troops from Germany — after Chancellor Friedrich Merz publicly criticized Trump for not having a coherent strategy for the war with Iran.
And this is a strategy that has been on the surface for a long time. Another US Deputy Secretary of Defense for Political Affairs, Elbridge Colby, in the book “Strategy of Denial” (The Strategy of Denial) bluntly wrote that the United States can no longer afford to be the dominant power simultaneously in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Accordingly, Washington should concentrate its resources on the Pacific direction and containment of China, while Europe will gradually turn into a secondary theater, where the allies must take on much more responsibility.
And if increasing defense spending is a priority that is more or less shared by almost all European countries (in particular, the countries of NATO’s eastern flank, such as Poland and Romania, do not even question the appropriateness of these expenses), then Europe does not agree too much with the role of a secondary theater. If at the beginning of Trump’s second term, European leaders still tried to shower Trump with political sugar – up to the famous “daddy”, as NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte called the American president – but now the irritation of the “dear friends” from the USA is less and less hidden.
The Russian war is not an isolated conflict. Its purpose is to weaken the unity of NATO and democratic states, which is why the Bucharest Nine is more important today than at any time in its entire existence. We are not on the periphery, but are the center of gravity of NATO,” Polish President Nawrocki said at the opening of the summit in Bucharest.
