It's become a joke - through gritted teeth - these days in EU circles, that whenever leaders meet, as they did these last two days in Cyprus - expecting to discuss practicalities, such as the new EU budget - they get railroaded by yet another crisis.
There is the ongoing energy crisis provoked by the US-Israel war on Iran, Russia's aggression in neighbouring Ukraine, now in its fourth year. And this Friday morning, souring relations between Europe and the United States, along with a potentially devastating defence impact, reared its Medusa-like head. Again.
No worries, Spain's determined-to-appear calm prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, said to waiting journalists as he arrived at the leaders' summit. We are fulfilling our obligations toward NATO.
What did he feel compelled to say he wasn't fretting about?
An email, originating from the US Pentagon and first reported by Reuters on Friday had leaked, suggesting measures for the US to punish allies it believed had failed to support the US-Israel campaign against Iran. The email said the US could seek to suspend Spain from NATO over its stance.
There is actually no provision in the NATO treaties to expel a member country. And any action to bar Spain from filling key civilian or military roles in NATO, also alluded to in the email as possible punitive action, would have to be taken unanimously amongst all NATO members.
Fellow EU leaders, at the Cyprus summit, who are also in NATO, leaped to Spain's defence. Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten said he wanted to be crystal clear that Spain was and would remain a full NATO member. He said European countries were currently doing a great deal to strengthen NATO. That, he said, was also in America's interest.
A high-ranking German official said Spain is a member of NATO. And I see no reason why that should change.
While Italian premier Giorgia Meloni – who was once seen as so close to Donald Trump as to be viewed as a 'Trump whisperer' – criticized the tensions between Washington and Madrid as not at all positive.
Meloni feels forced to take a stance against her erstwhile best buddy, drawing his ire at Rome too. The Italian prime minister has denied the US permission to use the Sigonella airbase in Sicily for military operations against Iran. As the head of government of a country that considers itself culturally Catholic, she also described Donald Trump's recent derogatory remarks about the Pope as unacceptable.
The leaked Pentagon email also suggested a possible potshot at former 'special ally', and fellow NATO member, the United Kingdom – reviewing the US position on the UK's claim to the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic, which are also claimed by Argentina.
Why?
Donald Trump has remained furious with British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer ever since he initially denied a request to use British military bases ahead of launching attacks on Iran in February. The UK has now allowed the US to use bases to launch strikes on Iranian sites targeting the effectively blocked Strait of Hormuz.
But Starmer insists that greater involvement in the war and the current US blockade of Iran's ports are not in the UK's interest. Donald Trump has repeatedly lashed out at him verbally as a result.
When it comes to Spain, though, Trump appears particularly incandescent. Prime Minister Sanchez was outspoken in his opposition to the US-Israeli strikes on Iran from the get-go, describing them as illegal under international law. He immediately denied US forces permission to use joint US-Spanish military bases in Spain for operations against Iran. This lead to threats (not as yet enacted upon) of trade sanctions from Donald Trump.
The Spanish premier had previously already grievously irritated Washington by being the only member of NATO to refuse the US president's demand to boost defence spending by 5% of GDP.
Spain has been dismissive of the leaked Pentagon email. Prime Minister Sanchez commented that we do not work based on emails. We work with official documents and official positions taken, in this case, by the government of the United States.
The mail betrays a fundamental misunderstanding in the Trump administration about what NATO does and what NATO is, says Camille Grande, the former NATO Assistant Secretary General for Defence Investment.
Are Europeans sufficiently aligned with the US, according to Trump's tastes? That is the wrong question for Washington to be asking, according to Grande. The defence alliance is based on consensus; not run by the United States.
Grande compares Donald Trump to a landlord seeking to expel tenants from his building if they don't pay sufficient rent in his opinion. But NATO is not Trump's building, he emphasizes.
Even more damningly, President Macron of France has accused Donald Trump of hollowing out NATO by repeatedly undermining the alliance in public. Trump likes to call NATO a 'paper tiger'. He's threatened to leave the defence alliance on a number of occasions, recently posting on social media that he had always considered NATO to be a 'one-way street'.
We will protect them, but they will do nothing for us, he has written.
These public displays of disunity are corrosive and potentially deeply damaging in defence terms for Europe. Countries in the east of the continent feel threatened by an expansionist Russia. Its war economy is being buoyed by cash Moscow is hoovering up as a result of being able to export oil at a high price worldwide now, thanks to the energy crisis provoked by Iran's effective blockade of the Strait of Hormuz – and the US counter-blockade.
Traditionally an arch trans-Atlanticist, Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland openly questioned this week whether the US would actually come to its allies' aid militarily in case of an attack, as envisaged in Article 5 of NATO's founding treaty.
NATO reckons Russia would be ready to attack a NATO nation in three years' time. The Dutch military intelligence service MIVD noted this week that in its assessment, after the war against Ukraine ends, Moscow would be ready to initiate a regional conflict against NATO within the year.
Spain, along with its neighbouring Baltic States ostensibly being in President Trump's 'good books', experienced a slap in the face by the US this week regarding defence capabilities. Because of its own needs in the war with Iran, the Pentagon told Estonia it would have to delay delivery of six units of a high-tech weapons system that Estonia had contracted to buy from the US government.
Late last year, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth seemed to suggest the Trump administration was essentially dividing up its allies into 'good guys' and 'bad guys'. In his address to the Reagan National Defense Forum on December 6, Hegseth said:
Model allies that step up like Israel, South Korea, Poland, increasingly Germany, the Baltics and others will receive our special favor. Allies that do not, allies that still fail to do their part for collective defence will face consequences.
The president is obviously upset by Europeans that failed to fully support the US war in Iran. But punitive measures like removing force posture in Spain seem over-reactive in light of the fact that Allies were never asked to assist the US and Trump has frequently denied that the US actually needed European support, according to former US ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith.
At the EU summit in Cyprus, leaders were sufficiently spooked as to want to explore a once little-known clause of the EU treaty - the mutual defence article 42.7. Could it be used if NATO's Article 5 proved to be redundant, at least as long as Donald Trump is president, some leaders wondered?
Stuck between public opinion hostile to the Trump administration and the economic and defence capability necessities of trying to keep Washington onside as much as possible, many of Europe's NATO (and EU) nations, lead by France and the UK, are preparing along with other nations, an international maritime patrol and mine-sweeping capabilities for the Strait of Hormuz after hostilities have ended. In the hope, amongst other things, of somewhat placating President Trump.
Why the disagreement? It's not about whether Tehran poses a threat but rather how to deal with that threat, with European governments favouring diplomacy and sanctions, not unilateral military action.
