What to expect from the first meeting of the US Secretary of Defense at NATO?

NATO defense ministers gather in Brussels on February 13 for their first meeting of the year.

All eyes will be on the new US Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegset.

Having recently survived confirmation in the US Senate, with Vice President J.D. Vance casting the deciding vote in his favor, NATO's 31 members are now eagerly awaiting Hegseth's views on a number of issues – notably the war in Ukraine, defence spending and America's commitment to the Alliance.

Hegseth's visit comes in a week when several US government officials are visiting Europe for the first time in their tenure, amid significant transatlantic tensions.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is due in Paris on February 12 to meet with his British, French, German, Italian, Polish, Spanish and Ukrainian counterparts, before heading to the Munich Security Conference which will bring together world leaders, defence officials and foreign policy experts.

JD Vance and the US special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, will also participate in the conference from February 14 to 16, but Hegseth is the only one who will appear in a formal, ministerial setting.

What is Hegseth expected to say in Brussels?

A US Department of Defense report following his first phone call with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on January 28 said both men "shared a commitment to strengthening and creating a stronger, more lethal NATO."

"Both leaders stressed the importance of increasing the military commitments of allies and expanding the capabilities of the defense industry on both sides of the Atlantic," it said.

A NATO source familiar with the conversation said the call went "better than expected."

Before taking up his new post, Hegseth said that the United States' allies in NATO were "obsolete, under-armed, attacked and impotent", and stressed that the military organisation was not an "alliance" but "an agreement to defend Europe, paid for and supported by the United States".

NATO members in Europe will be interested in whether Hegseth remains committed to NATO's mutual defense clause, Article 5, after US President Donald Trump previously cast doubt on the US's willingness to defend nations that do not invest enough in defense.

European defense spending will definitely be a topic at the ministerial meeting.

NATO officials I spoke to believe that Hegseth is likely to deliver a strong message.

Trump previously mentioned that defense spending could increase to up to five percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

Only Poland is approaching this five percent target, although Estonia and Lithuania have signaled that they will also increase their allocations to this level.

Everyone I spoke to in NATO agrees that the current level of two percent is too low and they expect the new target, to be agreed at the NATO summit in The Hague in June, to be set at around three to 3,5 percent.

What about the presence of American troops in Europe?

Few believe that Hegset will mention this at the first ministerial meeting, but there will certainly be discussions about it later in the spring.

Approximately 100.000 American soldiers are stationed on the Old Continent, mainly in Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom.

There has been speculation for some time at NATO headquarters in Brussels that US troops could be moved east, particularly from Germany, or that large numbers could be redeployed outside Europe altogether.

There is, of course, the delicate issue of Greenland, a Danish territory in which Trump has expressed interest. There is no indication yet that this issue will come up at the ministerial meeting, but discussions on the sidelines are possible.

NATO's position so far has been that the entire alliance should strengthen its presence in the far north, which includes the Arctic region and the northernmost parts of Europe and North America, avoiding the delicate issue of one NATO ally expressing interest in the territory of another Alliance member.

While Denmark has discussed the issue with Washington and its European allies, Copenhagen is apparently hesitant to officially put this on the EU and NATO agenda.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov will also be in Brussels, as one of the two sessions of the ministerial meeting will be the NATO-Ukraine Council.

Umerov will, in fact, provide an update on the state of the war, but most of the talk on the sidelines will likely focus on the increased media buzz among diplomats that peace talks with Moscow could begin soon.

For some time now, I have been hearing from NATO officials that a peace agreement is still quite a ways off.

As one ambassador to NATO told me: "There is no indication from the Russian side that they are willing to agree to any concessions at this point. They want to be at the table with the Americans, of course, but they are not entering into negotiations now because they feel like they are winning."

Will Brussels increase tariffs on Russian fertilizer?

The European Commission has finally decided to target Belarusian and Russian fertilizer.

On January 28, the Commission proposed to introduce gradually increasing tariffs on products over a three-year period in order to reduce prices on the EU market.

However, it is uncertain whether the proposal will be adopted and in what form.

This is not a typical sanctions proposal, which usually requires unanimity among the 27 EU members.

This time, it is a trade regulation that requires the approval of both the European Parliament (by simple majority) and the member states (by qualified majority).

On the one hand, this makes adoption easier because no single country can block the proposal. On the other hand, it can complicate the situation because two institutions are now involved.

This, in turn, increases the opportunities for Moscow and Minsk to lobby to soften the proposal – particularly through the powerful agricultural lobby within the EU.

The main reason Brussels is being quite cautious here is because of European farmers. They have a strong lobby in many EU member states, as well as in Brussels, and the last thing they want now is the increase in costs that this proposal could cause.

One EU diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak on behalf of the Union, admitted to me that the proposal could have come sooner to stop it being used as a battering ram in the European Parliament elections in June 2024.

Russian and Belarusian fertilizer is competitive due to the abundance of cheap gas, which is used in those countries to produce fertilizer.

The EU imported 2023 million tons of fertilizers in 14, of which almost four million tons came from Russia – the largest exporter of fertilizers to the EU, worth €1,28 billion.

That's money that goes, at least in part, to finance Russia's war in Ukraine.

Fertilizer trade with Belarus is worth around 30 million euros, although EU officials admit they are often unsure where the fertilizer is produced due to close economic ties between Minsk and Moscow.

In practice, the EU could diversify supplies beyond Belarus and Russia. Egypt and Algeria could fill the gap, but they could most likely be tempted to raise prices, claiming that a major player has left the market, thereby increasing demand.

There is also the capacity to fill the gap with production within the EU, which is essentially the purpose of the European Commission's sanctions proposal: to strengthen the Union's domestic industry and ensure better food safety.

France, the Netherlands and Poland would be able to increase production, but then gas prices within the EU would have to be reduced.

The question is whether this proposal will be adopted and, if so, how much it will be changed.

Diplomats from several member states I spoke to said that some capitals will demand that the European Commission carry out an impact assessment to see whether the measures will harm the EU more than they will harm Belarus and Russia. That could delay the process – and is a sign that member states are not particularly interested in the measures.

However, the measures are not that drastic at the beginning.

Russian and Belarusian fertilizers already face a general tariff of 6,5 percent.

The European Commission proposes an additional fee of 40 euros per tonne from July 1.

Next year, that fee would increase to €60 per tonne, and then to €80 per tonne in 2027, before jumping to €315 in 2028, essentially making imports too expensive.

The phased-in phase means that Russia and Belarus will not experience any immediate economic damage. With the war likely to end or at least be suspended this year, questions are being raised about whether these measures will even come to fruition.

There is also the possibility that EU importers place large orders now while prices are still reasonable and then postpone purchases when prices rise, thus neutralizing some of the effects.

There is also the issue of food shortages in the rest of the world. The EU is alarmed by accusations from developing countries that food shortages in other parts of the world are caused by EU sanctions on Russia since the war in Ukraine broke out in February 2022.

Brussels has so far been adamant that sanctions on Moscow and Minsk are not the cause of the food shortage. The European Commission's proposal makes it clear that transit through the EU will still be possible, and reducing EU purchases of Russian products will mean that more fertilizers will be available on the market for developing countries to buy.

Third anniversary of the Russian invasion and first anniversary of Navalny's murder

The European Parliament meets in Strasbourg this week and will mark the third anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion, and on February 16 - the first anniversary of the death of Russian opposition politician, Alexei Navalny.

On the last day of the plenary session on February 14, Parliament is expected to adopt a non-binding resolution questioning the legitimacy of Georgian President Mikheil Kavelashvili, whose mandate is being contested by the country's opposition.