E5 powers claim Europe’s security lead

On 24 June 2026, the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom gathered in Berlin to settle a common line on European security before NATO’s summit in Ankara on 7-8 July. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte joined by video from Washington, where he had just met Donald Trump (Bundesregierung, Euronews).

The meeting mattered less for its choreography than for what it claimed. E5, a self-selected group of Europe’s five largest military powers with no formal EU or NATO status, moved for the first time from a defence-ministers’ format to a leaders’ table. Berlin was five capitals saying they intend to steer European security, while quietly exposing how differently they understand the phrase “a stronger Europe.”

Five Flags, Three Visions

The joint statement spoke smoothly about defence spending, industrial cooperation and support for Ukraine (Elysée, UK Government). The paper was consensual. The politics underneath were not.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz hosted the summit to build a shared position before Ankara. He also wanted to widen the old E3 habit, where Paris, Berlin and London managed European security among themselves, by bringing in Rome and Warsaw. Both had objected to being left outside the room (Le Figaro, Deutschlandfunk).

The sharpest divides sit inside that agreement. Germany wants Europe to do more within NATO: more money, more troops and more capability flowing into Alliance structures. France accepts that language in public, but sees E5 as a way to pull defence industry and military action closer to European control, including the question of who commands and who decides. Poland wants the United States locked into eastern-flank deterrence and is bargaining for a permanent US base on Polish soil (DW). Italy’s aim, as Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni framed it, is more direct: to be in the room when decisions are made (Il Fatto Quotidiano).

For Ireland, the point is not that Dublin would expect a seat at that table. It would not. Ireland is militarily neutral and outside NATO. The issue is that European security decisions are increasingly being shaped in informal formats where EU membership alone does not bring influence. E5 can coordinate positions, signal intent and apply pressure. But NATO still turns that into alliance planning, the US still controls key enablers such as air defence and intelligence, and defence companies still determine what can actually be built.

That chain of authority matters because the most ambitious test of Franco-German cooperation fell apart only weeks before Berlin.

The FCAS Warning

FCAS/SCAF, the next-generation fighter system meant to combine crewed aircraft with remote drones, failed because Dassault and Airbus never settled who would control design, intellectual property and exports (The Guardian, ICDS). That collapse is the clearest warning against taking E5’s cooperation language at face value. Berlin and Paris could agree a summit statement. They could not agree who builds the aircraft.

The EU has put money behind joint procurement. Its SAFE instrument, Security Action for Europe, offers up to €150 billion in defence loans, with rules requiring European-origin content (European Commission). But money does not by itself solve the FCAS problem. Joint production still depends on national governments and companies agreeing who owns what, who exports what, and who gets the industrial work.

Reporting found that while 19 states had applied for SAFE funds, only three operational arrangements were complete (Euperspectives). That gap between budget headline and delivery is the space where European defence plans usually run into trouble.

What the US Will Actually Do

Rutte’s Washington-to-Berlin sequence was no accident. He told allies that European NATO members and Canada had spent more than $90 billion extra in 2025 compared with the previous year (Atlantic Council). He also confirmed that the United States had lowered some pledged force contributions to NATO planning, and that Europeans were already filling parts of the gap (NATO).

Rutte is managing a practical bargain: Europe pays more and does more in order to keep America committed. But there is no public evidence of a binding US guarantee on specific troops, enablers or operational support in return (Politico). Article 5, NATO’s mutual-defence clause, remains legally intact. The risk is more mundane and more difficult to manage: Washington could honour it slowly, narrowly or on its own terms, by delaying basing decisions, holding back stockpile releases or attaching conditions to Patriot deployments.

Spain’s absence shows the new hierarchy. Madrid is the EU’s fourth-largest economy, but E5 selects for military weight and proximity to the eastern-flank threat, not EU institutional standing (Antena 3, Euronews Spain). That rule will shape which countries influence NATO planning and whose threat perception dominates.

The Ankara summit in two weeks will show whether E5 coordination can produce Alliance commitments. The harder test will come afterwards: whether five capitals can build a European pillar of NATO, with Europeans carrying more of the military burden, when they still cannot agree who designs the weapons.