Turkey presses NATO’s EU members to broaden their horizons

As well as pushing for wider European cooperation in the alliance, the Ankara summit host knows that it is key to helping Europe regain influence in its rapidly changing southern neighbourhood, says Galip Dalay.

The World Today

Published 15 June 2026

Updated 17 June 2026 — 4 minute READ

Image — Turkish armoured vehicles advance during the land phase of NATO’s Steadfast Dart exercise in Germany this year. Forces from 10 allied nations took part. Photo: Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu/Getty Images.

Galip Dalay

Senior Research Fellow, Middle East and North Africa, Europe and Russia & Eurasia Programmes

At NATO’s July summit in Ankara, leaders will gather as Russia’s war on Ukraine shows no sign of abating, doubts continue about the commitment of the United States to the alliance and the Iran war remains unresolved. The question of security for Europe will, therefore, be as high on the agenda as ever – and will require new thinking.

In response, host nation Turkey, at the Ankara summit and beyond, will be pressing to see the issue addressed more broadly than at the European Union level. How? By establishing closer cooperation among NATO’s EU members and its non-EU European members. Member states must also look beyond a narrow conception of Europe by building a wider understanding of the ‘neighbourhood’, particularly to the south. At the same time they should realize the effect on them of seismic shifts in global geopolitics and their relations with one another.

Pan-continental approach

From Turkey’s perspective, European security cannot be left to the EU countries alone. Whether the United States reduces its support for NATO or withdraws it, the continent requires a new architecture – starting with closer cooperation between alliance members in the EU and those outside it, especially Turkey, Britain and Norway. The aim should be to strengthen the European pillar within NATO and widen security by adopting a pan-continental approach. In time, such a framework should aim to include non-EU and non-NATO European states, such as Ukraine, and could pave the way for a European Security Council.

Whether the US reduces its support for the alliance or withdraws it, the continent requires a new architecture.

Broadening European security in this way has trade-offs. While it might prove more agile, whatever framework emerges probably wouldn’t have the permanence, institutionalization and strategic clarity of NATO under US leadership. To facilitate it would also mean elevating dialogue between capitals rather than through Brussels. Turkey is already adopting this approach in its defence industrial cooperation with Italy and Spain, for instance.

Such security cooperation is more than a geopolitical consideration. It should encompass defence procurement, integration, joint innovation and coordination in other strategic areas. Certain EU members appear more open than others to deeper cooperation with non-EU NATO partners.The EU launched its €150 billion defence procurement and loan mechanism, Security Action for Europe (SAFE), last year. While Germany has supported opening the initiative to Turkey and Britain, France has sought to keep the mechanism limited to EU members.

Any new framework needs to tackle the fact that Europe’s security is contingent upon that of its wider neighbourhood. However, European discussions along these lines are narrow, with the geopolitical focus starting in Russia and ending in Ukraine. It is entirely understandable that Russia’s threat is a preoccupation of debates on European security. But it is not just Europe’s eastern neighbourhood that is undergoing upheaval; its southern neighbourhood is too. The Gaza war, Israel’s regional revisionism, the regime change in Syria and the US–Israel war against Iran are redefining security in the wider Middle East and the Mediterranean.

Crises in the south

Europe’s impotence in the restructuring of its southern neighbourhood is glaring, most obviously in its absence from the ongoing diplomacy over the Iran war. The nuclear agreement with Iran in the form of laying the groundwork for the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was one of the signature achievements of European diplomacy. No such intervention is apparent today.

Europe’s impotence in its southern neighbourhood is glaring, most obviously in its absence from diplomacy over the Iran war.

All this should serve as a wake-up call. For a long time, the assumption was that Europe would reshape its neighbourhood. Instead, the opposite is true. Given its intricate web of relations and crucial role across these eastern and southern neighbourhoods, Turkey is in a good position to foster the sort of cooperation between it and Europe that would be mutually beneficial and allow Europe to reassert itself.

It is also imperative that key European NATO members coordinate on other security issues than just military capacity in the wider neighbourhood. Due to the pandemic, recent and current wars and great-power rivalry, questions of supply-chain redesign, trade corridors and connectivity, energy security and related strategic initiatives are now more pressing. With its central role in the Middle Corridor (between China and Europe) and the Iraq Development Road Project (between the Indian Ocean and Europe), Turkey can play an important part in the redesign of trade routes, supply chains and energy security.

These issues will redefine the geopolitics of those regions, their relations with Europe and their positions globally. The Ankara summit should lay the groundwork for sustained, structured dialogue on all these issues across Europe’s wider neighbourhood. Any emerging framework also needs to give more consideration to the reordering of global geopolitics currently under way. This would require reappraising all the major powers, starting with Russia. With regard to Ukraine, key NATO members seem to show limited common understanding. Each state, especially the Europeans, needs to clarify how they define and address the Russian threat, what they see as their vital interests at stake in Ukraine, and how they should attain them.

Turkey, for instance, differs from many European states in how they address the Russian threat. Turkey’s policy can be summed up as pro-Ukraine without being overtly anti-Russia. It was one of the first countries to provide Ukraine with weapons, but refrained from adopting western sanctions against Russia. In contrast, several European states were hesitant to provide Ukraine with weapons initially but later became more vocally anti-Russian.

Global reordering

The changing global order should also be addressed. If the world is heading towards spheres of influence in which great powers hold sway over their regions, NATO members need to ask themselves whether such a scenario is a threat or an opportunity. Their response will not only affect how they adapt to such change but may limit their potential for cooperation.

For instance, President Donald Trump has it within his power to eviscerate NATO and, by so doing, fracture the geopolitical West. Such a decision would be a big step closer to a multipolar, post-western world. It would also significantly affect the model of wider coordination under discussion here, not least Turkey’s role in the European security order and its relationship with Europe.

Much is at stake. Yet amid the fears about the future of NATO and the US commitment to it, an opportunity exists to revitalize and repurpose the alliance by paving the way for closer, more structured cooperation between NATO’s EU and non-EU European members. This could give Europe a greater sense of where its security lies if US support is reduced or withdrawn. It might also make Europe the centre of gravity for its wider neighbourhood and a formidable pole in an emerging post-western world. The first steps should be taken at Ankara in July.

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