European Conservative MEPs Arrive in Washington Days Before NATO Ankara Summit

Roughly 20 members of the European Parliament affiliated with the European Conservatives and Reformists Group arrived in Washington this week for a series of senior-level meetings with Trump administration officials, using the visit to signal alignment with the United States ahead of the NATO summit scheduled for July 7-8 in Ankara, Turkey. ^[1][2]

The delegation met with Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby, according to Carlo Fidanza, head of the Italian delegation within the ECR Group and a member of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy party [POLITICO]. The lawmakers were also scheduled to meet with deputy national security adviser Andy Baker, per a schedule reviewed by POLITICO [POLITICO]. The State Department, the Pentagon, and the White House did not respond to requests for comment. Colby, confirmed by the Senate on a 54-45 vote in April 2025, serves as the principal civilian policy adviser to the Secretary of Defense and has been a leading voice in the administration's push for European allies to assume greater responsibility for conventional deterrence on the continent. ^[3][4]

The Ankara summit, the first NATO heads-of-state meeting to be held in Turkey since 2004, carries particular weight for the alliance. ^[5][6] Defense spending and U.S. burden-sharing demands sit at the center of the agenda, with European allies and Canada having increased core defense investment by roughly $139 billion in nominal terms in 2025. ^[7] Fidanza framed the summit as a fork in the road: the United States could continue to press allies on spending and burden-sharing, or it could acknowledge that allies have already responded to that pressure. He expressed a preference for the latter, describing it as the course most likely to restore the "transatlantic bond," though he stopped short of predicting which path the administration would choose [POLITICO].

The visit reflects a more complicated picture within Europe's populist right than is often assumed. Meloni, who has coordinated closely with Trump on migration policy, has seen that working relationship erode in recent months, particularly over the U.S. conflict with Iran [POLITICO]. France's Jordan Bardella and the Alternative for Germany party have similarly moved away from alignment with the Trump White House [POLITICO]. Notably, AfD members were not included in the Washington delegation. Yet the ECR group as a whole maintains a firm commitment to NATO's collective defense framework under Article 5, the treaty obligation that underpins the alliance's deterrence posture. That commitment, the lawmakers said, is what distinguishes their wing of European conservatism from broader anti-establishment politics on the continent.

The Polish contingent in the delegation arrived with specific bilateral grievances. In May, the Pentagon canceled a planned rotation of approximately 4,000 U.S. Army soldiers to Poland, a decision that came without formal congressional notification and without public explanation from the Defense Department. ^[8][9] The move, which followed the administration's announcement of a withdrawal of roughly 5,000 troops from Germany, brought U.S. force levels in Europe closer to pre-2022 levels, before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. ^[10][11] A separate Trump commitment to deploy an additional 5,000 troops to Poland has not materialized [POLITICO]. Adam Bielan, who leads the Polish ECR delegation, said Warsaw's priority is preserving U.S. military presence on NATO's eastern flank and that Poland would accept some overall reduction in U.S. forces in Europe, provided eastern-flank countries are not disproportionately affected.

Poland's chargé d'affaires in Washington, Bogdan Klich, said the embassy is running its own parallel track with the administration. Klich said he met with State Department Counselor Dan Holler earlier this week to press Poland's expectation that promised U.S. troops will arrive and to convey Warsaw's readiness to host those forces and their families on a permanent basis [POLITICO]. The ECR delegation's Washington visit, Klich said, provides an additional channel of communication to the administration beyond formal diplomatic contacts, a framing that underscores how Warsaw is hedging its engagement strategy ahead of a summit that will test whether burden-sharing rhetoric translates into concrete alliance commitments. ^[12]

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced last month a six-month review of the overall U.S. military presence in Europe, described publicly as a report card that, in his words, "some countries will fail." [POLITICO] That review, combined with the Poland troop cancellation and the Germany drawdown, constitutes the operational backdrop against which the ECR lawmakers are making their case in Washington: that Europe's conservative, pro-NATO flank is a reliable partner and that the administration's burden-sharing goals and transatlantic cohesion are not mutually exclusive.