Notes from a NATO Summit: An Estonian Perspective • FRANCE 24 English

After the NATO summit in Ankara, more details coming out, as often happens, what was really playing out inside the Bezzeke presidential compound as 32 leaders of the alliance met. One of those that we've just been hearing about, reporting in the Wall Street Journal of Times of Israel that President Trump's team appear to have been quickly shifting plans with an apparent assassination ongoing by Iran, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. There's also the side deals of the summit, the drone deals done with the Baltic leaders, amongst others, and President Zelensky.

And there's the issue of this controversial summit, gifts given out by President Erdogan, causing a moral dilemma for all the world leaders to take or not to take a pistol with bullets enclosed. Let's bring in Joachim Clemente, European correspondent for Estonian Public Broadcasting and friend of the programme who's just got back from the summit. Great to talk to you, Joachim.

First of all, your take on the news that President Trump switched planes. Did you see, were you at that particular press conference, where it seems now the Wall Street Journal suggests there was a plot ongoing? I don't know anything about a plot.

Hello, as well. But I just think President Trump likes to be number one on any list he is on. So he was in his meandering press conference, like often his press conferences are, talking about being number one on TikTok and also being number one on Iran's kill list.

And I think he takes it as a compliment. So I don't know how much truth there is to it, honestly. Take us into the NATO summit, the 35th summit.

Interesting that there have been five in the past four years since the outbreak of the full-scale war in Ukraine. In the first 40 years of NATO, there were about 10 in that time. So this is a fast pace and lots of questions about whether it's necessary to have every single year, the risks of Trump versus getting Trump on board.

Take us into the areas that we don't always report on, just what it was like watching this all play out, how it started and how it's going. Well, I can tell you, if we look back at the recent NATO summits, we've had, I think, looking at the last five, only one of them was really one that you could say was kind of just a let's gather and be around in a good mood, right? I mean, we had in Madrid new promises on defense.

We had in Vilnius new agreements on defense plans. And then, you know, at Washington, there was not maybe a lot, but most importantly at Hague, this promise of 5% defense spending. And the last one really was meant as a kind of effort to push all the allies, at least from an Estonian perspective, it's good to hold this summit because everybody wants to deliver something for the summit.

So if you want all allies to really be fulfilling this promise they made at the Hague last year, you want everybody to be forced to kind of have something to deliver for the summit. The risk, as you alluded to, is obviously that the U.S. president will not be very happy with the progress the European allies have been made.

But in that term, at least from an Estonian perspective, I think a very good balance was honestly struck. There were some tense moments. But as we hear from our ministers inside the room compared to maybe outside the room where Trump brought up Greenland again, was saying to cut off all trade with Spain because they're not doing enough on defense.

But inside this room, at least what our prime minister and defense minister were saying, that Trump was very positive that he was also saying that, you know, commending the allies that are spending this year 5% on core defense among those, the Baltic states. So from an Estonian perspective, I think it was a very kind of successful summit. And also what was interesting is in Estonia recently, we've had a little bit of confusion with the U.S. troops that are stationed there on a rotational basis.

Some of them had left because the U.S. had announced a six-month review of their force posture in Europe.

And we were a bit worried that the Americans might have left for good. But I saw the defense minister come out from the meeting with literally notes written on sort of the back of a napkin. He had spoken to the U.S. defense secretary, Pete Texeth, or war secretary, I guess now.

And there will be new U.S. troops this summer already coming to Estonia.

So there was also deal-making in the kind of sidelines of the summit on the backs of napkins. That's very interesting. This is the kind of thing that we don't hear about.

So there was talk that the U.S. as part of its kind of on-and-off withdrawal plans of troops leaving Germany and questions about Poland that is it the Tapa base that we're talking about?

This is one of the few, one of the Estonian bases that I've been to where the Brits were for some stage. Is that the base that there are questions over as well? No, no, no.

This Tapa base is something different. So in the south of Estonia, there is another base as well, where usually the 2nd Brigade of the Estonian Defense Forces is positioned. But recently there have been Americans there, battalion-sized units, if I'm not mistaken, on a rotational basis.

These forces come from the units in Poland. They go to all of the Baltic states. They do their rotations there.

They train with the Estonians. Recently, when we were buying these HIMARS long-range attack munitions, the U.S. troops were there also to train our soldiers in their use.

So this is kind of an ongoing sort of sub-deployment from the deployment the Americans have in Poland. Just the question came that this announcement of the six-month review that Pete Hex had called in Brussels earlier, kind of the decision came at the moment where the U.S. troops were rotating out of Estonia.

So there was kind of the new unit got paused before it made it there. So I think our defense minister, Hanna Bevkoor, was really trying to kind of send this message after the meeting, after getting this agreement with SAKUR, the NATO commander in charge of these decisions, and Pete Hex from the American side to send this message that, no, the Americans don't want to leave us. But that takes us to the question, doesn't it, Joachim?

And you've been to a few of these, whether actually it is necessary to have a NATO summit every single year to risk the ire of Trump or vice versa to actually placate Trump. What you're saying with the notes of backs of napkin, this is very useful, these summits for the Estonians and others trying to get a word in. Well, absolutely.

I think so, actually. I mean, there is a question. I think we might not have one next year because there is some confusion about it being, Mark Rutte said, the Secretary General of NATO, that there will be one in Albania, but they didn't say a date.

So it's quite likely that we won't have one next year. But as I said at the start, you know, if you have to go to a summit, you have to show the world the result of your actions. So that puts pressure on everybody to actually, you know, fulfill these promises that are being made.

And for Estonia, this is an opportunity, you know, to meet with the big guys, because from what I understand, our defence minister has a good relationship with the Americans. But, you know, let's be honest, we're so small. There's not a lot of opportunity for us to kind of get our word in.

So if there are meetings, usually that's good for us, but it's not so easy to get them, maybe. Let me ask you about the other thing that I mentioned at the top, what the drone deal is going on, very easy to, in the triage of information, to miss kind of the extent to what was going on with Zelensky, the Estonians. Talk us through that.

Right. So the Estonian prime minister, Kristian Michal, and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, sat down to have a small bilateral meeting and also sign this drone deal, the text of which is not public. It's not public knowledge.

They don't share anything. But what we heard from our prime minister afterwards and others as well from the Estonian side, basically this allows us access to Ukrainian drone technology, which is, you know, a good thing, because one thing we are talking about in Estonia as well as we are also falling behind in the drone revolution. The Ukrainians are just so much better at this sort of tech that without them, you will not be able to utilize all of this new progress that's been made during the war.

And this would also potentially allow Estonian and Ukrainian companies to cooperate in producing this sort of equipment. But as I said, I mean, the text is not public. The amounts of money that are going to be spent on these things have not been decided.

So it's yet to be seen how successful all of this will be. It is a step in the right direction for sure, something that's necessary. But is it really going to be a success?

We don't know. So this is Estonia, Netherlands, Denmark. There were three deals done on the sidelines with President Zelensky.

As you talk about this building on Ukraine's battlefield, kind of tested drone expertise, joint production technology sharing, lots of details still to emerge. That is very good and interesting to hear. Take us to another issue, which is Mark Reuter.

You've been watching, you've spoke to him in the past as well. When we're looking at the focus on him this week, particularly a Danish colleague, a Danish journalist, asking about how he feels to the extent of his own self-worth of dealing with Trump and not speaking up on Greenland and other issues. What was your take on that?

And Mark Reuter, the difficulty of that job? I mean, it's for certain a very difficult job. He has completely set himself into this role of being kind of the Trump whisperer, the person who, at this summit as well, presents a victory for Trump.

Here, you know, take this. Thanks to you, all of these European allies that were doing, you know, nothing before or doing everything now. It's only thanks to Trump, basically, is what Reuter was saying, to make Trump happy.

You know, he has had some success. When we talk about the tensions we had with the Danes, for example, on Greenland, I would argue that maybe at Davos it was Reuter that kind of sealed the deal to get Trump to calm down among the pressure from the Europeans to respond with trade actions if something were to really escalate. So, but at the same time, I am a bit, I've yet to make my mind up on Trump or Reuter, really, because there are some cases, for example, when we had this incident of Russian planes flying into Estonian airspace, there was, which was reported in American media, an argument between the Estonian prime minister and Mark Reuter about whether Estonia should invoke Article 4.

I mean, luckily, which I think was very right, our prime minister said, I'm sorry, Secretary General, it's not for you to object. It's the right of every ally to invoke this consultation of all the allies when we perceive a threat. So I think sometimes Reuter can placate Trump too much and be too afraid to deliver some messages to the Americans.

And that doesn't always work in our favor. But it's hard to say that he hasn't had any success in kind of smoothing over the very turbulent relationship we've had with the Americans over the last year. Let's talk about summit swag, Joachim.

Did you get a pistol? What was going on there? Right.

I mean, we heard about this on the last night. So the president of Turkey, Erdogan, gave every leader a personalized revolver with live bullets. And there were some reports, apparently, I think it was the Belgian prime minister, Bart De Wever, who carried this gun home here to Belgium without even realizing, which is illegal, actually.

So that was quite an interesting occurrence for our prime minister. We also asked what he did with the gift. But since our prime minister doesn't have a license to carry a gun, he couldn't bring it back legally.

So I think it remained in Turkey. I don't think we, you know, we keep every present. I mean, there's obviously a present also to Estonia.

There's protocols to this. But it's all very, very odd, honestly. And it's very kind of, for me, coming from the north, from Estonia, the culture in Turkey, you know, it to me is very odd.

I don't want to insult the host. No, but it's a moral choice, isn't it, for the leaders? Keir Starmer, we know in the UK, on his last NATO summit, before he leaves office, he left his behind.

Bart De Wever, the Belgian prime minister took his across to Belgium, because there was also a note, apparently, to clear customs, wasn't it, in Turkey. He, that's now been picked up and being, basically, it's been withheld by Belgian services. Let's have a listen to the Canadian prime minister.

This is what Mark Carney said about it. Good afternoon, good evening. I did, I learned about it from, I think it was Prime Minister Starmer.

So I learned about it. And then, of course, my colleagues told me, yeah, we were, we had this. And it's not what I expected.

OK, he kind of sideswiped the issue a little bit. Joachim, we are a point now, I mentioned Keir Starmer's last summit, possibly even the last summit for President Macron, given that by next year, we'll have, by May, a new president in office. And as you say, if we don't see anything in Albania next year, they all go off now for their holidays.

Parliamentary season coming to an end. As they pack away, will they be reassured at the end of this summit, given what could have been at the start? I mean, I think it was a good result.

There's one very, very important caveat. You know, this, this 5% promise that NATO made last year at The Hague is really divided into two different promises. You have one to spend 3.5% on core defense and then to spend 1.5% on basically adjacent things.

I mean, we're talking, you know, bridges, airports, things that are important for defense, but not really the bullets and the shells that we really, really, really do need to give the Russians the message that, hey, don't attack us, it won't end well. And, you know, I've had, read some Estonian analysts also saying that NATO has entered a post-truth age where everybody's kind of inflating their defense expenditure while not maybe checking if all of that is useful. I mean, the Estonian prime minister also kind of pitched in saying that if, hey, if everybody's doing this, our defense expenditure is not only 5%, it's already approaching 7%.

So we shouldn't get carried away by trying to placate Trump and forgetting what the reality is. This is a 10-year project that NATO has started to catch up to pay for the peace dividend that we took in the meantime. There's still a lot of progress to be made.

Joachim, great to talk to you as always. Have a great summer. And we'll speak to you on the other side in September.

Joachim Clemente, European correspondent for Estonian Public Broadcast. Joachim Clemente, European correspondent for Estonian Public Broadcast.