The Future for Turkey and the EU after the July NATO Ankara Summit

On July 7-8, 2026, Turkey will host what has become the annual NATO leaders’ summit. The event will take place this year at the Bestepe Presidential Compound in Ankara. The leaders from all 32 NATO members including U.S. president Donald J. Trump and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet to discuss transatlantic security, defense planning, and international support, among several others weighty items.

The last time Turkey hosted the summit was in Istanbul on June 28-29, 2004, in what was then a very different world. Turkey already has taken strong security measures for this summit by detaining 233 people including an important LGBTQ + activist leader. Despite criticism that protesting against NATO was not a crime, security not only seems necessary but inevitable given Erdogan’s recent criminalization of his main opposition Republican Peoples Party (CHP) by judicially removing its leader Ozgur Ozel and now more than year-long imprisonment of Ekrem Islamoglu, Istanbul’s popular mayor and until his unwarranted incarceration likely presidential opponent in the next election. In addition, the once promising Turkish-PKK peace process has stalled.

The Ankara NATO summit might prove a critical turning point for the almost 80-year-old alliance for several reasons. (1) Trump’s criticisms of his NATO allies for not supporting him more during the recent war in Iran as well as their hesitation to pay more for their own defense; (2) Trump’s threats to weaken U.S. support or even leave the alliance; (3) Trump’s implied threats against alliance members (such as threats to seize Denmark’s Greenland possession and to make Canada the 51^st U.S. state);  (4)  the continuing war between Russia and Ukraine; (5) perceived Russian threats against NATO members bordering Russia; and (6) Turkey’s not so distant torturous relations with NATO involving its flirtations with Russia, is yet another, among others. NATO’s future certainly involves possible paradigmatic step changes with Turkey emerging as a major military leader in the alliance and the EU constructing much more expensive and autonomous defense capabilities, both results of Trump’s threats to dimmish U.S. NATO participation.

Even without these new factors, permanently operating ones such as Turkey’s location near the Middle East, Caucasus, Balkans, Black and eastern Mediterranean Seas, Central Asia, and key energy corridors make it pivotal to NATO’s post-Cold War security agenda. In contrast to these geostrategic hot spots, stands the limited reach European NATO allies like even the UK, France, and Germany possess. Thus, Turkey is prepped to assume command of NATO’s Multinational Reaction Force and use its armed forces, which are the second largest in the alliance, as well as its impressive defense industry to make itself the fulcrum of alliance security.

For example, Turkish defense minister Yasar Guler emphasized that his country’s domestic defense industry with its renowned Bayraktar drones contributes to NATO’s collective defense: “Our indigenous and national systems support allies’ interoperability and contribute to the alliance’s overall deterrence . . . and strong NATO.” The defense minister went on to tout Turkey’s contribution to training, exercises, operations, and command-and-control activities across the alliance as well as its operational experience in counterterrorism and cross-border operations.

In what could only be music to Trump’s ears, Guler also declared that Turkey was ready to support mine-clearing operations in the Strait of Hormuz if necessary while contributing to maritime security and freedom of navigation in accordance with international law. However, this ignored the fact that even though Turkey was the only NATO country sharing a border with Iran, it too chose not to join the U.S.-led war against the Islamic Republic. Nevertheless, Trump ignored Erdogan’s absence while still praising him but at the same time criticizing the other NATO leaders who chose not to join.

Many rather incredulously believe the European NATO allies also rely on Erdogan to uphold Trump’s continuing commitment to the alliance due to his respect for the Turkish leader. For example, Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan claims that Trump will attend the Ankara summit because of his “personal respect” for Erdogan, adding that otherwise the U.S. president would be hesitant to attend. Furthermore, merely hosting the summit obviously elevates Turkey’s diplomatic profile, a position from which Erdogan can seek closer trade and political integration with the EU, while still pursuing relations with Russia, China, and others.

These powerful Turkish advantages, however, still do not overcome the continuing political, economic, and cultural divide between Turkey and the EU. The Ankara summit will not automatically lead to closer Turkish-EU military and political cooperation. Tensions remain over issues like Turkey’s strong criticism of French defense agreements with the Greek Cypriot state, ironically an EU member while Turkey remains on the outs. Residual EU historical support for EU member Greece also serves as a foil to a more inclusive embracing of Turkey.

 Given the current uncertainty regarding continuing U.S. troop commitments and U.S. shifting priorities towards China, European leaders are strengthening their determination to construct an independent, resilient defense structure. To give Trump his due, this increase—widely heralded at last year’s NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands on June 24-25—was largely initiated at his demand that the European NATO allies grow their anemic defense allotments to 5 percent of their gross domestic product by 2035. Thus, these NATO allies are accelerating their defense spending to secure themselves against perceived threats emanating from the continuing Russian war in Ukraine in conjunction with threatened U.S. cuts in defense support.

Unfortunately, in a blow to European defense cooperation even such supposed grownups as France and Germany recently proved unable to reach agreement on a new 100 billion euros joint Future Combat Air System (FCAS) fighter jet program due to an irreconcilable deadlock between the primary French and German defense contractors. Thus, the EU’s historical hesitancy to embrace Turkey fully as an EU and NATO ally may have to further soften into a necessary practical partnership as the European NATO allies are forced to rely more and more on Turkish military support and even leadership. As Trump withdraws U.S. support from Europe, Turkey stands to replace the gap and benefit from increased joint projects with its European NATO allies. The EU too will have to build a stronger political and military capacity to compensate for any partial U.S. withdrawal.

In conclusion, despite its deteriorating domestic economic situation and turn to authoritarianism, Turkey seems to be growing as a regional and even international power. Thus, the Ankara NATO summit could enable it to attain a more influential military role in all the geostrategic areas mentioned above. These factors along with its also mentioned rapidly developing state-of-the-art defense industry make such ambitions possible. Unlike most of its European NATO allies, Turkey has become an important provider of security, rather than a mere consumer.

For their part, the EU NATO allies will stress progress on three key points: defense spending, defense industrial spending, and renewed aid to a Ukraine suddenly holding more cards than Trump earlier infamously claimed. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte—from Norway, which ironically is not an EU member—will stress every statistic possible to show how the EU NATO allies are stepping up to the financial plate as demanded by Trump. With the largest ever NATO Summit Defense Industry Forum (NSDIF) set to occur as part of the Ankara summit, Rutte will emphasize not only increased spending but also greater defense industrial production. Finally, the EU allies will tout their Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL), a mechanism for European allied nations to pool funds and purchase American-manufactured weapons, air-defense interceptors, and munitions directly from U.S. stockpiles and producers for most urgent front-line and infrastructure protection needs, despite earlier U.S. attempts to seemingly throw Kyiv under the Russian bus.

Some have even referred to the NATO 3.0 Model that fundamentally shifts NATO from a U.S.-dependent position to a European-led conventional defense model. NATO 3.0 would alter the division of labor so that Europe takes primary responsibility for deterring threats on the continent, while the United States still provides extended deterrence as it shifts its primary focus to the Indo-Pacific and Western Hemisphere as outlined in its new National Security Strategy (NSS) announced late last year and analyzed previously by this author in an Atlas Think Center article.

Michael M. Gunter is a professor of political science at Tennessee Tech University and the author of Erdogan’s Path to Authoritarianism: The Continuing Journey (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2024).