ESSAY: European conservatives in Washington — mending the alliance before Ankara breaks it

Introduction: Twenty parliamentarians, one diplomatic emergency

The discreet visit that says everything about the state of the alliance

In early July 2026, roughly 20 conservative members of the European Parliament traveled to Washington. Not with fanfare. Not with triumphant press releases. But with a precise mission, summarized by Politico in its coverage of July 1st: "to remind the United States of its ideological allies on the continent" — and in part to "avoid sparks at the upcoming NATO summit" in Ankara. The visit had been planned months in advance, but it had taken on new resonance because of "recent frictions between the White House and its nationalist allies on the continent."

These twenty parliamentarians belong to the European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR). Among them: Carlo Fidanza, a member of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy party, and Adam Bielan, a Polish parliamentarian for whom his country's security was, he said, "at the forefront of his mind." They met with Deputy Secretary of State Sarah Rogers, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby, and were scheduled to speak with Deputy National Security Advisor Andy Baker.

Context: an Atlantic alliance tested by Trump

What Trump has done to the transatlantic relationship

Since Donald Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, the transatlantic relationship has experienced a documented series of shocks. Foreign Policy catalogued them: rapprochement with Putin, claims over Greenland, arbitrary tariffs against the European Union, alliances with far-right parties, and threats to punish NATO allies that had not supported the United States against Iran. This accumulation produced what a Foreign Policy article from June 29, 2026 called a "partnership of convenience" — a relationship that functions despite everything, but without the warmth or strategic trust of previous decades.

Yet a fragile equilibrium has settled in. European leaders have "learned to manage Trump," according to the same analysis. They have pledged to increase defense spending, buy American weapons, deploy peacekeeping forces, accept tariff increases, and fund Ukraine. In exchange, they hope Trump will maintain American military engagement in Europe — or at least not withdraw it too quickly. It is a risky calculation, but the one most European capitals have made.

The fracture with nationalist parties

The visit by conservative parliamentarians to Washington reveals a specific fracture: some of Trump's ideological allies in Europe have drifted away from him. Jordan Bardella in France and the AfD in Germany — absent from the delegation — had created friction with the White House. The implicit message of the visit is therefore: "we are the good European conservatives, the ones who remain close to your alliance."

Fidanza, who leads the Meloni group in Strasbourg, articulated two scenarios for the Ankara summit: either Trump maintains pressure on allies to increase their defense contributions, or he acknowledges that this pressure has worked and allies have responded. Fidanza hoped for the second scenario. It was not a guarantee.

Poland and the security of the eastern flank

The American troops that never arrived

For Polish parliamentarian Adam Bielan, the visit to Washington carried a concrete urgency: American troops. In May 2026, the Trump administration had abruptly canceled the deployment of 4,200 soldiers to Poland. A promise to send 5,000 additional personnel was still unfulfilled as of the date of this article. Polish chargé d'affaires Bogdan Klich had met with State Department counselor Dan Holler on the same day to reiterate that Poland was ready to welcome those soldiers — with housing, infrastructure, and families included.

The reality of this waiting says something important about the state of the American commitment to Eastern Europe. Poland spends 4% of its GDP on defense. It has welcomed hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees. It shares a border with Russia via Kaliningrad and with Belarus. And it waits — with measurable patience — for American soldiers whose presence serves as a real deterrent against potential aggression. Bielan had summed up the Polish position diplomatically: "If a reduction takes place, we hope the eastern flank won't be affected."

The Hegseth review and its impact on allies

American Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had announced a six-month review of American presence in Europe, stating it would produce a "report card" where "some countries will fail." This formulation — brutal in its transactional logic — created documented anxiety among NATO allies. It reduces fifty years of alliance to a unilateral performance evaluation.

Yet the objective facts favor many allies. Poland passes without question. Germany and several other countries have significantly increased their defense spending under American pressure. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte had, according to Euromaidanpress data from July 1, 2026, reminded Trump that European defense spending supports 195,000 American jobs and represents $300 billion in orders for American industry. The economic argument, in Trump's logic, is often the most effective.

The Ankara summit: stakes and risks

Why this summit is historically important

American Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the July 7–8, 2026 summit in Ankara as "probably the most important meeting in NATO history." This statement is not rhetorical. It reflects the convergence of an unprecedented series of factors since the Cold War: an ongoing war on European soil, doubts about the reliability of the American nuclear umbrella, a serious discussion about expanding NATO's nuclear sharing, and the emergence of an autonomous Ukrainian military power that no one had anticipated.

The summit is held in Ankara — on home ground for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who simultaneously maintains particular relationships with both Putin and Trump. Europeans are counting on him to keep the summit "boring" — meaning without dramatic incidents that would weaken the Alliance. Turkey is looking to extract concessions, notably the sale of $700 million worth of jet engines. This mixture of geopolitical stakes and commercial interests is characteristic of Atlantic diplomacy in 2026.

What will be on the table

The major questions to be discussed in Ankara are well identified. First, Ukraine: what additional military support, what eventual membership prospect, what architecture of security guarantees in the meantime? Then, European defense: are spending commitments sufficient, and can Europe develop credible strategic autonomy without alienating Washington? Finally, nuclear sharing: is it time to extend the presence of American nuclear weapons to the eastern NATO flank, as Lithuania and Finland have now constitutionally permitted?

These questions are linked. Lithuania's decision on July 2, 2026 to remove its constitutional ban on nuclear weapons — following Finland which did the same in June — is no coincidence of timing. It is a signal sent to Ankara: the NATO members closest to Russia are ready to go further on nuclear deterrence if the Alliance authorizes it.

Trump's role: necessary evil or systemic risk

Unpredictability as doctrine

Donald Trump is the most unpredictable factor at the Ankara summit. His tendency to upset diplomatic equilibria with unannounced statements — even in formal settings — has been documented since 2018. European allies have developed mitigation strategies: listen to Trump, manage his moods, find angles that fit his transactional logic, and avoid direct confrontations on values.

The visit by European conservative parliamentarians to Washington fits into this mitigation strategy. By arriving before the summit, by meeting directly with Trump's teams, by explaining that conservative Europe shares American positions on several files — including firmness toward China and Iran — they sought to reduce the probability of an intemperate Trump outburst in Ankara.

Zelensky's repositioned relationship with Trump

A notable development of recent months is the evolution of the relationship between Trump and Zelensky. After the Oval Office disaster of February 2026 — where Trump and his vice president JD Vance had publicly humiliated Zelensky — French President Emmanuel Macron noted during the trilateral talks at the mid-June 2026 G7 that Trump was no longer playing the role of "neutral mediator." That is a positive development. It means Trump has, at least provisionally, positioned himself on Ukraine's side rather than in a false equidistance with Moscow.

But this evolution is fragile. It depends on the moods and calculations of a president whose foreign policy remains fundamentally transactional. If Putin offers him a favorable deal on another file — economic, commercial, or related to Iran — Trump could revert to his equidistant position. That is the systemic risk European allies have been managing continuously since January 2025.

The European right and support for Ukraine

The European right divided on the war

One of the subplots of the conservative parliamentarians' visit to Washington is the internal division of the European right on the war in Ukraine. On one side, parties like Meloni's Brothers of Italy, the Polish PiS, and Scandinavian conservatives — clearly pro-Ukraine and pro-NATO. On the other, Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella's Rassemblement National in France and the German AfD, which maintain more ambiguous positions toward Russia and did not participate in the delegation.

This fault line within the European right is politically significant. It shows that "Atlantic solidarity" is not automatic among conservative and nationalist parties. Trump's White House must navigate between pro-Ukraine ideological allies (Meloni, Tusk) and those who have flirted with Moscow. The early July 2026 visit was precisely intended to clarify this map.

The message to the Trump administration

The message carried by European conservatives to Washington can be summarized as follows: we, the European Conservatives and Reformists, are your natural allies. We support Ukraine. We invest in defense. We reject the temptation of rapprochement with Moscow. And we need you to remain committed in Europe for deterrence to work.

This message is both sincere and strategic. Sincere because the countries represented — Italy, Poland, Scandinavia — have actually upheld their defense commitments. Strategic because it aims to prevent the Trump administration from being tempted to treat conservative Europe with the same skepticism it applies to some progressive governments. American domestic politics influences American foreign policy — a reality Europeans have learned to factor in.

The 195,000 jobs Rutte mentioned

The economic argument for European defense

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte chose, according to Euromaidanpress on July 1, 2026, to remind Donald Trump that European defense spending supports 195,000 American jobs and represents $300 billion in orders for American industry. This argument is revealing of how NATO must sell itself to Trump's White House: not as an alliance of shared values, but as a profitable investment for the American economy.

This approach is pragmatic and, in Trump's logic, potentially effective. But it carries a cultural and political cost: it normalizes the idea that collective security is negotiated on the basis of a measurable return on investment, rather than on the basis of mutual commitments in the face of common threats. If this logic prevails, what happens when an ally cannot prove its economic profitability for the United States — even if it is under threat?

The limits of transactionalism

Ukraine itself is the most striking example of the limits of transactionalism. It does not generate direct orders for American industry at the same scale as Germany or Poland. Its strategic value for the West is real — it absorbs a Russian army that, without the war, could threaten NATO members — but it is difficult to quantify in terms of GDP or jobs. Rutte's argument is correct within its perimeter. It does not cover the full moral and strategic space the alliance must defend.

The conservative parliamentarians' visit to Washington also had an implicit goal: to recall that moral space. Europe is not merely a market for American weapons. It is a partner in values — democracy, rule of law, individual freedom — that both sides of the Atlantic have an interest in preserving, independently of any profitability spreadsheet. This message is harder to convey to Trump. But it is fundamental.

Ukraine in this picture: sidelined or central?

The paradox of the present absent

Ukraine is not a NATO member. It does not sit in Ankara as a full party to deliberations. But it is the central subject of this summit as it is of all European security policy since February 2022. Every decision taken in Ankara — on defense spending, on nuclear sharing, on troop deployments — will have direct consequences for Ukraine's ability to hold against the Russian war machine.

Zelensky is not in Ankara as a formal participant. But his presence permeates the deliberations. The attack of 570 projectiles on Kyiv on July 2nd — five days before the summit — is a kind of memo from Putin addressed to the participants: the war is here, present, lethal, and it will not stop by summit decree if conditions on the ground do not change.

What the European conservatives are asking for Ukraine

The parliamentarians who made the trip to Washington share with most other allies a fundamental support for Ukraine. Fidanza, a member of Meloni's group, clearly articulated the position: NATO must remain unified, Ukraine must receive the support it needs, and allies must show Trump that they are taking their responsibilities seriously. This is not a revolutionary position — it is the continuity of mainstream European policy on Ukraine.

But the nuance is in the details: how many additional Patriot systems? What lifting of restrictions on long-range strikes? What timeline for EU and eventually NATO membership? These concrete questions remain unanswered. And that is precisely where the Ankara summit has the opportunity to turn general statements into measurable commitments. Or not.

The Meloni model: navigating between Trump and Europe

The Italian position as laboratory

Giorgia Meloni is perhaps the European leader who has best managed to navigate the relationship with Trump without sacrificing Atlantic principles. Ideologically close to the Republican administration, she has maintained firm support for Ukraine and NATO. She has participated in European decisions to support Kyiv while managing her relationship with Rome and Brussels. Her position is one of a strong Atlantic alliance, a Europe that takes its responsibilities, and an Italy that plays the role of bridge-builder between the two shores of the Atlantic.

Italy's assumption of the Tallinn Mechanism presidency on July 1, 2026 — with an additional contribution of one million euros to Ukrainian cyber defense — fits this logic. It is no coincidence that it is Meloni's Italy taking on this role. It is a signal to both Kyiv and Washington: Italy is a reliable ally on both counts — Ukraine and transatlantic relations.

The limits of this model

The Meloni model has its limits. It works because Meloni has a personal relationship with Trump and with American conservative circles, and because Italy is an important enough country to command Washington's attention. Smaller allies — the Baltic states, for example — have greater difficulty using this bilateral diplomatic lever. They depend more on the multilateral mechanisms of NATO for their security, and are therefore more vulnerable to Trump's moods on the Atlantic alliance.

That is why the visit by the twenty conservative parliamentarians also had a dimension of solidarity: by going to Washington together, they made visible a conservative Europe united on the question of Ukraine and NATO. That unity — even imperfect, even incomplete — is a political resource that the Ankara summit will need to mobilize.

What this summit will change — or will not

Realistic scenarios

Without attempting to predict the unpredictable, it is possible to identify realistic scenarios for the Ankara summit. In the best case: firm commitments on deliveries of air defense systems to Ukraine, a serious discussion on nuclear sharing, and an agreement on defense spending that satisfies Trump without fracturing the alliance. In the worst case: a hollow final declaration, vague commitments, and a post-summit spin that Putin interprets as a signal of Western fatigue.

Between those two poles lies a multitude of intermediate scenarios. The preparatory visit by European conservatives is precisely designed to reduce the probability of the worst scenario — by ensuring that Trump's teams arrive in Ankara with a more nuanced and positive picture of their European allies. If this effort contributes to a few additional compromises in the wording of communiqués, the trip will have been worth it.

What Ukraine hopes for

Zelensky hopes Ankara will deliver concrete commitments: more Patriot batteries, a partial lifting of restrictions on long-range strikes, and a clear signal that Ukraine has an eventual path to NATO membership. These requests are reasonable, but difficult to satisfy simultaneously in the current American political context. Trump has shown persistent resistance to some of these requests, particularly lifting restrictions on deep strikes against Russian territory.

The July 2nd attack — 570 projectiles, 20 dead in Kyiv — arrives as a brutal reminder of what is at stake. Every Patriot system not delivered, every restriction maintained on long-range strikes, every ambiguity on the membership prospect, carries a measurable human cost. That cost is paid in Ukrainian lives. And the allies sitting in Ankara bear a share of that responsibility.

The test of Atlantic coherence

What the alliance must prove to itself

Beyond Ukraine, the Ankara summit is a test of coherence for the Atlantic alliance itself. Can it function effectively when its most powerful member — the United States — operates with a fundamentally transactional foreign policy? Can it maintain collective commitments when some members (Hungary, and to a lesser degree others) play internal veto games? Can it adapt its decision-making structures to a geopolitical reality that has fundamentally changed since 1949?

These questions are philosophically deep. They will not find a definitive answer in Ankara. But the way the summit addresses them — directly or by sidestepping — will say something important about NATO's capacity to adapt to the challenges of the 21st century. An alliance that cannot speak frankly about its own contradictions is one that accumulates them until they become unmanageable.

The conservatives' visit as a smaller test

The visit of the twenty conservative parliamentarians to Washington is a miniature version of this coherence test. They made a choice: instead of passively waiting for what the Ankara summit would produce, they acted in advance to shape the context. That is a form of active politics — participation in the alliance rather than simply waiting for American decisions.

This model — allies who take their responsibilities, engage, explain themselves, and build bridges — is precisely what both Rutte and Trump are asking European allies to be. If the Ankara summit produces positive results for Ukraine and for Atlantic cohesion, these twenty parliamentarians will have contributed, modestly, to that outcome. And that is not nothing.

An essay on a broader test of coherence

The fundamental question: which West for which world?

This essay starts from a precise event — a diplomatic visit by conservative parliamentarians — to touch on a larger question: what is the state of the West in July 2026, and is it equal to the challenges that Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea simultaneously pose? The honest answer is: partially. The West is more aware of these challenges than it was five years ago. Its defense spending is rising. Its alliances, despite the tensions, are holding.

But there are structural fragilities that Trump's transactional politics, the ambiguities of certain European allies, and the war of attrition in Ukraine have exposed. These fragilities are not fatal — they can be resolved through coherent policy, kept commitments, and a shared vision of what the West wants to be in the world. But they need to be named clearly, without naivety and without catastrophism.

What twenty parliamentarians understood

These twenty European conservative parliamentarians who flew to Washington understood something too many commentators miss in their analysis: that alliances do not sustain themselves by inertia, but through active work, constant investment, and the capacity to adapt the message and strategy to the changing political realities of partners. They understood that Trump cannot be ignored or simply bypassed — he must be managed with intelligence.

This diplomatic intelligence deserves recognition. Not as a capitulation to American unpredictability. But as a form of political maturity that acknowledges that ideals are not defended in a vacuum — they are defended in ministry corridors, in Washington meeting rooms, and through the difficult conversations allies must have with each other before they can stand united against their adversaries.

China, Iran, and North Korea in the shadow of Ankara

The threats that do not wait

While NATO leaders focus on Ukraine in Ankara, other threats are advancing. China is intensifying its surveillance and military operations around Taiwan. Iran, whose negotiations with the United States are progressing slowly, continues to supply drones to Russia. North Korea is delivering artillery ammunition fueling the Ukrainian front. These three actors form, together with Russia, an informal axis of revisionist powers that all have an interest in seeing the West occupied, divided, and weakened.

The Ankara summit cannot resolve all these threats simultaneously. But it can signal that NATO sees all of them. American policy in Iran — where negotiations over the Strait of Hormuz are advancing under Kushner and Witkoff — has direct implications for the war in Ukraine: if Iran obtains sanctions relief in exchange for a limited agreement, the question of its drone deliveries to Russia must feature among the conditions. Without that, the Iranian deal indirectly finances the war against Ukraine.

The global dimension of European security

Europe in 2026 can no longer afford to handle its security files in separate silos. The war in Ukraine, tensions around Taiwan, China's military buildup, the Iranian nuclear program, and North Korean provocations are linked by a common thread: a challenge to the system of international rules the West has built since 1945. Responding to each threat separately without seeing this global architecture is treating symptoms while ignoring the cause.

The Ankara summit should therefore include, even implicitly, a discussion of how NATO is preparing its allies for these multiple and simultaneous threats. This is not a distraction from the war in Ukraine — it is the context that gives it meaning. Ukraine is resisting Russia; if it holds, it also weakens Moscow's partners in this revisionist axis. That is one more argument for unconditional support.

Conclusion: The alliance worth saving

What July 1, 2026 will have produced

The visit of twenty conservative parliamentarians to Washington between July 1st and 4th, 2026 will not, on its own, change the course of the war in Ukraine. It will not transform Trump into an unambiguous champion of European security. It will not resolve the internal contradictions of an Atlantic alliance under strain. But it contributes to something important and difficult to quantify: the maintenance of a network of relationships, partial trust, and direct communication that allows the alliance to function even under pressure.

In a world where Putin bombards Kyiv with 570 projectiles in a single night, where China develops its military capabilities at an alarming pace, where Iran and North Korea feed the Russian war machine with drones and ammunition, the West cannot afford approximate alliances. These twenty parliamentarians, at their modest level, helped make their alliance a little less approximate.

An essay with no clean conclusion

I admit it: this essay has no clean conclusion. There is no simple answer to whether the Ankara summit will rise to what Ukraine and European security require. There is no formula for making Trump predictable or eliminating the internal contradictions of the Atlantic alliance. What I know is that the allies who do the groundwork — who take the flights, who hold the difficult meetings, who build the economic and moral arguments — are those who deserve to be heard.

And what I also know is that the alternative to an imperfect but functional Atlantic alliance is a world where Putin decides European borders by force, where China extends its influence unchecked, and where democracies defend themselves alone without the collective leverage that amplifies their strength. Faced with that alternative, the alliance's imperfections are problems to solve — not reasons to abandon it.

Ankara: the decisions that will define a generation

The coming days

In a few days, NATO leaders will convene in Ankara. The twenty European parliamentarians will have done their preparatory work. The diplomatic teams will have polished the texts. Trump will arrive with his own political calculations. And Putin will be watching from Moscow, having sent his message in missiles over Kyiv five days earlier.

This summit will be judged not on its communiqués, but on what follows: weapons delivered or not, commitments respected or not, pressure maintained or released. Ukraine will be counting. Its European allies will be counting. And these twenty parliamentarians who flew to Washington will have, hopefully, helped make the count favorable.

What history will remember

If the Ankara summit produces substantive commitments for Ukraine — and if those commitments hold — history will record an Atlantic alliance capable of adapting without fracturing. If the summit disappoints, history will record a moment when the West chose diplomatic comfort over hard decisions.

The European conservatives' visit to Washington is one thread in this tapestry. Not the most visible. Not the most decisive. But one of the necessary threads. Great political constructions hold through their details. This visit is one of them. And this detail — I note it. I keep it.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

Positioning and assumed biases

I am a pro-West, pro-NATO, and pro-Ukraine analyst and columnist. These positions fundamentally influence the angle of this essay. I regard Donald Trump as a "necessary evil" for the West — a formulation that implies both his structural necessity and his real risks. I am critical of his methods while acknowledging that his weight in the transatlantic system is inescapable. This ambivalence is deliberate.

Sources and methods

This essay rests on the following primary sources: the Politico article from July 1, 2026 on the European conservatives' visit, analyses by Foreign Policy, and data on defense spending and NATO commitments from Euromaidanpress. Analyses of the political motivations of key actors — Trump, Meloni, Putin — are inferences based on documented behavior, not psychological certainties. The essay expresses editorial opinions clearly distinguished from the facts reported.

Sources

Primary sources

Politico — European conservatives' pre-NATO goodwill tour — July 1, 2026

Foreign Policy — Can NATO pull off a quiet summit? — June 29, 2026

Euromaidanpress — Rutte tells Trump European defense spending supports 195,000 US jobs — July 1, 2026

Secondary sources

The Guardian — NATO leaders fear they can no longer rely on US help if Russia attacks — June 27, 2026

Foreign Policy — NATO summit: is the transatlantic alliance dead or alive? — July 1, 2026

Foreign Policy — Trump, weapons, Iran, Lockheed, Ukraine, and NATO — June 25, 2026