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July 13, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 2
Trump gives Eastern Europe hope and pain at Nato summit
answered for Nato and the EU in the wake of the summit.
Trump began his visit by bashing Germany for be- ing too dependent on Russian gas, a swipe at one of the most divisive issues besetting the EU: Nord Stream 2.
Although the US president met German Chancel- lor Angela Merkel later on, claiming the two had
a great relationship, his assertion that Germany was a “captive of Russia” because it relies on Russian gas would most likely reinvigorate a simi- lar view held in the eastern part of the EU.
Poland, Ukraine, and the Baltic states are all fiercely opposed to Nord Stream 2, which they see as Moscow’s solution to the problem of applying pressure on former satellites without troubling Germany.
Once Nord Stream 2 is operational, Warsaw and its backers insist, Russia could manipulate gas supplies to countries it is feared to be planning to subjugate. Falling prey to Russia is an especially lively concern in the Baltic states and Ukraine.
Poland has been working to become independ- ent of Russian gas by 2022. Warsaw has recently signed agreements with US companies on sup- plies of LNG to the Polish LNG terminal. Warsaw’s anti-monopoly and competition protection office also opened proceedings against Gazprom over Nord Stream 2.
Lithuania, in turn, is hoping that its own LNG terminal will become a gas hub for neighbouring Latvia and Estonia and thus eliminate or at least diminish Russia’s role as a supplier.
But where Trump appeared to have sided – more or less directly – with countries of the EU’s east- ern flank, he was quick to deliver some worri- some messages as well.
Early into the second day of the summit, there ap- peared conflicting reports on Trump’s threatening to “go it alone” – pull out of Nato – if other allies kept missing the alliance’s target defence expend- iture of at least 2% of their respective GDPs.
That triggered an emergency meeting of the al- liance’s leaders that – according to Trump’s own words at a presser he held afterwards – resulted in additional “$33bn maybe $40bn” in defence expenditure pledges.
But other allies, such as French President Em- manuel Macron, denied tabling any extra commit- ments outside of the existing pledge of 2% of GDP, agreed in 2014.
The continued discord over expenditure has the eastern members of Nato worried that should geopolitical tensions escalate, they would be left to face the much larger Russian military alone.
Of Nato’s 27 members, only four met the target in 2017, according to the alliance’s estimate car- ried out in March. These are the US, Greece, the UK, and Estonia. Another five – Poland, Romania, France, Lithuania, and Latvia – are within a few percentage points of the target. Poland and the Baltic states have upped their defence spending in reaction to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. If the eastern frontline members of the alliance