By Daniel Viaña, Brussels/ The 2027 NATO summit, originally scheduled to take place in Tirana, Albania, now seems almost entirely out of the question. At least for the moment, almost no one in the Alliance sees any reason to hold it, and instead, they believe there are reasons to avoid the meeting. The most important reason is that everyone wants to prevent another clash between Donald Trump and some, or many, of his allies. That includes Spain, of course, but also Denmark, as happened during the 2026 summit in Ankara, and even Germany. A clash that could involve the entire North Atlantic Treaty Organization, from which Trump recently threatened to withdraw.
"The chances are very, very slim," agree diplomats from several countries consulted by "El Mundo." "It is very unlikely that there will be any meeting. Not only because of the unpredictability of the US president, but also because of the proposed location," they emphasize. The reason for this last point is that there are doubts about Albania's current defense spending and whether it really exceeds the threshold of 2% of GDP.
"And the United States has made it perfectly clear that it will not agree to hold a summit in Albania if it does not meet this request," diplomatic sources emphasize.
It should be added that decisions on military spending were taken at the Hague summit in 2025. The target was set at 5% of GDP, made up of 3.5% in basic spending plus 1.5% in defense-related investments, which Spain rejects. Therefore, a meeting on this issue would not be necessary.
Now, NATO's role is to monitor the progress of member countries and verify that each ally is fulfilling its obligations. The Spanish government claims that it can achieve this by investing significantly less than 5% of its GDP, but NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte claims that is impossible. However, a summit is not at all essential for this purpose; this has already been established through regular reviews of the organization.
“The only possibility I see for a leaders’ meeting next year is if events force an emergency summit, perhaps informal, either at NATO headquarters in Brussels, as happened after Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine, or via videoconference,” added sources from a southern country. For example, if Russia takes its provocations even further. Just this week, Romania accused Vladimir Putin’s regime of being responsible for a drone attack on a cargo ship in the Black Sea, which resulted in the death of at least one sailor and the disappearance of three others.
Romanian President Nicusor Dan reported that the cargo ship Khoryv was “hit by a drone and sank near Romanian territorial waters,” a country that is part not only of the EU but also of NATO. “A civilian ship with Ukrainian and Azerbaijani crew members has been hit off the coast of Romania. These reckless attacks endanger innocent lives and openly defy international law,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen posted on her social media accounts.
But for now, it is still unclear when the next summit will be held. Even the conclusions of the Ankara meeting did not explicitly state that it would take place in Tirana in 2027, and the statements circulating in Brussels these days only confirm this. NATO summits do not have a fixed deadline and depend on the context of each era. In the last decade, for example, they were usually held every 2 years. But after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, they have been held every year, and in 2022 there were two more: an extraordinary one in Brussels called by former Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and another in Madrid. ©Taken from " El Mundo ", prepared by LAPSI.al
