NATO will not hold a leaders’ summit in Albania in 2027, as planned. The decision comes amid tensions within the alliance over defense spending, the US position on Iran and the war in Ukraine.
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said in Dublin that “there is still no common position on when the summit will be held, but certainly not in 2027.” He said that if a summit is organized in 2028, it will be held in Tirana.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte presented the change as a matter of organization rather than a decision to withdraw Albania’s hosting rights. “We are flexible about summits. We hold them when they are necessary,” he told the Associated Press.
Ministerial meetings are also being reduced
The changes are not limited to meetings between heads of state and government. NATO defense ministers usually meet in October, but no such meeting was held in October 2026. No meeting is planned for October 2027 either.
Foreign ministers will hold one regular meeting in 2027 instead of the previous two. NATO describes the changes as part of a reorganization package. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have skipped alliance meetings or left before the discussions ended, the Associated Press reports.
Defense spending puts Albania under pressure
Albania was selected to host the next summit in 2025. In July 2026, however, the country’s name was not included in the declaration following the meeting in Ankara. According to the Associated Press, some allies believed that Tirana was not allocating enough funds to defense.
Albania is expected to spend 2.15% of its gross domestic product on defense in 2026. This is below NATO’s new target for 2035—3.5% of GDP for core defense and another 1.5% for related infrastructure. Spain, Belgium and Slovenia, however, have lower shares than Albania.
Hosting a summit requires significant funds and lengthy preparation. The summit in the Netherlands in 2025 required about a year of work and an investment of approximately $100 million. Rutte stressed that ensuring the security of 32 leaders, partner countries and representatives of countries such as Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand makes such events expensive.
Following the summit in Ankara, NATO has new targets for spending and military capabilities, as well as force planning that has been discussed. That is why David Cutler, an expert at the Center for European Policy Analysis, believes that two or three years may pass before there is a need to bring all the leaders together again.
Sources: apnews.com, internazionale.it