Poland Swallows the Rule of Law Pill While Hungary Raises the Stakes

This month a key NATO summit in Madrid will be held as France transfers its presidency of the European Council over to the Czech Republic and 3SI countries Presidents and businesses meet in Riga for the yearly 3SI summit.

Europe is soul searching this month.

NATO Summit

NATO will hold a high-level summit in Madrid on June 29-30 to adopt a new Strategic Concept, the 10-year blueprint looking at the security challenges facing the alliance and outlining steps to address them. The last Strategic Concept was adopted at the 2010 Lisbon summit. This time, much attention will be dedicated to Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine. In addition, NATO leaders are expected to discuss cybersecurity threats and the impact of climate change on conducting NATO operations. The topic of China will also have a prominent spot in the summit’s discussions, as an intense debate over the degree to which the Strategic Compass should feature China and its position in the international system is expected.

All in all, however, Russia and the question of how NATO should react to the broken security architecture in Europe will be the main concern of the summit. Breaking from a long-term strategy of neutrality, Finland and Sweden have applied to join NATO. Several NATO member states, from the Baltics to Spain, have sped up their parliamentary procedures for granting approval. At the same time, Turkey sees an opportunity to present demands to the last non-NATO Nordic states, quoting Sweden’s perceived support of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which Turkey has designated a terrorist organisation, as their primary concern. One should expect more negotiations and honeying from NATO this time, as well as an eventual agreement. But once again Turkey has presented itself as a questionable ally and this is unlikely to forebode well for intra-NATO relations.