Meloni and key ministers convene ahead of NATO Ankara summit to tackle thorny issues

A government meeting held on Wednesday at Palazzo Chigi set out Italy’s position ahead of the 7-8 July NATO summit in Ankara. The meeting, convened by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, brought together Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, Defence Minister Guido Crosetto and Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti. At the centre of the discussion were military spending and the strategy to strengthen the European pillar of the Atlantic Alliance, while the question of Italy’s participation in the EU’s SAFE defence loan programme remains unresolved.

A few hours before the meeting, reports in the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung had claimed that Italy intended to oppose, in the summit’s final declaration, a reference to allies’ financial commitments to supply weapons to Ukraine for both 2026 and 2027. Government sources denied that account, stating that Rome had never opposed the allocation of 70 billion euros for Kyiv and had only initially considered whether that figure should appear in the final declaration, a reservation that had already been dropped days earlier. The same sources clarified that the request for different wording was not linked to pro-Russian positions but to the aim of not undermining the prospects of a negotiation that could bring Russia to the table.

Support for Kyiv had already been discussed on 24 June in Berlin, at the E5 meeting, when German Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced his intention to send from Ankara “a strong signal of support for Ukraine” backed by “strong financing”. Ahead of the summit, the government has also arranged for an Italian Samp-T battery to be deployed to Turkey, made fully operational in the hours following the meeting to help protect the gathering.

Tensions over U.S. flights from Italian bases

A second front of tension, linked to American bases in Italy, emerged alongside the Palazzo Chigi meeting. Defence Minister Guido Crosetto responded to allegations concerning flights allegedly taking off from Italian territory for military action against Iran, stating firmly that “there were none.”

American aircraft spark NATO storm. How Italy and Romania responded

Crosetto explained that when the United States requested activities falling outside existing bilateral agreements, the Italian government withheld authorisation, “a refusal that also generated strong disappointment on the part of the American administration.” The minister said he was ready to hand over flight data to the Copasir parliamentary oversight committee, comparing the 518 flights authorised between 28 February and 23 June with those from the same periods in previous years, when the figures were 722 in 2019, 450 in 2020, 457 in 2021 and 560 in 2022.

The controversy stemmed from remarks made in late June by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who said that 500 US aircraft had used bases in Italy to support operation “Epic Fury” against Iran. The Defence Ministry had called that account “entirely false,” stating that only technical and logistical activities, not kinetic ones, had been authorised. Tajani, too, rejected Rutte’s version during question time in the Chamber of Deputies, calling his remarks “ill-advised and untrue” and noting that the operation against Iran “was not a NATO operation,” making it “hard to see how Rutte could have known.” Asked about it in the following days by the Financial Times, Rutte partly walked back his claim, referring to roughly 5,000 US flights that had departed from European bases over the course of the conflict as a whole and describing the instances of non-cooperation by European allies as “isolated.”

Toward Ankara, the fight over the 5% of GDP target

The Ankara summit comes a year after allies committed in The Hague to raising defence spending to 5% of GDP by 2035, a target on which the Trump administration is demanding close scrutiny. According to Matthew Whitaker, the US ambassador to NATO, the summit will serve as a kind of “report card” on allies’ progress toward that target, after US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said on 18 June some allies should be ashamed of themselves over delays in meeting their 2025 commitments.

Tajani confirmed that Italy “will confirm our commitment on military spending in Ankara: a courageous and necessary step to protect our freedom and our citizens’ security.” Meloni had already announced in recent weeks that she would bring to the summit a defence investment equal to 2.8% of GDP, an increase of 0.71 points, achieved mainly through spending linked to security on national territory, as the prime minister has repeatedly specified. Still unresolved within the government, however, is the question of whether to join the SAFE programme, the EU’s loan instrument for defence investment.

Meloni’s government faces weak public support for ramping up arms spending. Defense remains politically sensitive, with voters prioritising other issues. This creates a “consent bottleneck” – even with favourable EU loans, pushing big increases risks backlash. Although SAFE offers cheap loans (leveraging the EU’s strong credit rating), Italy remains cautious about adding to its high public debt. It has sought to exit the Excessive Deficit Procedure and prefers targeted spending over broad increases.

Despite tensions, Meloni attended on Thursday an event in Rome dedicated to the U.S. Independence Day celebrations on 4 July. In the coming days it will become clear whether, and how, Meloni will hold a bilateral meeting with Trump in Ankara, where the prime minister will in any case meet NATO Secretary General Rutte.

The article in Italian by EUalive’s partner FocusEurope.it can be found here.

Caption: Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni (R) speaks with Italian Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Antonio Tajani as she reports to the Chamber of Deputies on the upcoming European Council meeting, in Rome, Italy, 11 June 2026. EPA/FABIO FRUSTACI