Trump wants NATO to spend 5% of GDP on defense, Fico meets Putin, and Hungary picks a fight with Poland

December 17-22 in Eastern Europe

Dec 23, 2024

Donald Trump in Warsaw, Poland in 2017 (Paweł Kula, Sejm RP via Wikimedia Commons)

What You Need To Know:

This roundup combines last week’s top news with important underreported stories

1. Trump’s aides told European leaders that he will seek to ramp up NATO defense spending to 5% of GDP but will keep arming Ukraine

According to The Financial Times, Trump’s closest foreign policy confidantes told European officials last week that while he will continue to arm Ukraine once he takes office, Trump will require NATO states to spend at least 5% of GDP on defense in order to receive American support. Trump also claimed on Sunday that Putin had expressed interest in meeting him to discuss Ukraine “as soon as possible,” after Putin had said he is ready to meet Trump “at any time” several days prior. Despite his eagerness to meet, Putin expressed no regrets about his invasion of Ukraine during a press conference in Moscow, saying he should have started the invasion “earlier.”

Why it matters: Amid a wide variety of potential Ukraine policy options that Trump’s camp has floated over the past few weeks, these latest comments from some of his closest advisors offer the first semblance of what approach the president-elect will take toward Kyiv on day one of his presidency. In a sense, this is good news for Europe — Trump has laid out a path forward which, while ambitious, will ultimately set the conditions for continued American protection of Europe while also forcing the continent’s leaders to get their security sector in order. It is unlikely that all of European NATO will meet the 5% mark, but ultimately it doesn’t have to — the continent’s most vulnerable eastern members are also the ones that already spend the most on defense. Trump’s eagerness to meet with Putin before formal negotiations are set is unlikely to yield any positive progress, but the fact the Trump team is signaling that they may continue to aid Kyiv in a limited fashion while forcing Europe to beef up its defense shows they may not be entirely interested in playing nice with Moscow.

2. Slovakia’s Fico met Putin as the end of a Russian gas transit deal through Ukraine stirred unease throughout the region

Slovak PM Robert Fico met Putin on Sunday in a surprise visit to Moscow, becoming only the third European leader to meet the Russian leader since the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022. Fico made the trip in the context of the expiration of a Russian gas transit deal that supplies Slovakia and several other countries in the region with Russian energy through Ukraine, and stated that Putin had expressed “readiness” to continue supplying Slovakia with gas. European leaders however called Fico’s visit a “disgrace,” while Hungary announced that it was also in talks with Russia and Ukraine to continue to keep the transit route open, even though Ukrainian leaders have stated they are not interested in renewing it in 2025.

Why it matters: Hungary and Slovakia have been working to find a solution to their Russian energy woes for the past few months with both the EU and Ukraine, but have been met with rebuke from both sides. Now, with Hungary, Slovakia, and Moldova all facing security crises due to the end of the transit deal, each country is being forced to find creative solutions to keep the gas flowing — but while Moldova is receiving assistance from the EU to wean it off from Russian energy, Slovakia and Hungary have both decided they would rather double down on ties to Russia, and thus further damage their ties with the rest of Europe, rather than pay more for more politically acceptable energy. Fico’s visit to Russia however has put him firmly in Hungarian PM Orbán’s camp as a pro-Russian leader in the EU and NATO, likely making him into even more of a political pariah in Europe than he was previously.

3. Hungary angered Poland by granting political asylum to a fugitive former Polish politician, escalating tensions between the former allies

Hungary on Thursday announced it would be granting political asylum to former deputy finance minister Marcin Romanowski who has been accused of defrauding the state and misusing public funds under the previous ruling right-wing Law and Justice Party government in Poland. The act, which the current centrist Polish government called a “hostile” move that is an “insult” to Polish citizens, caused Warsaw to summon Hungary’s ambassador to the country on Friday. Romanowski in turn accused the Polish government of “illegally usurping power.”

Why it matters: Hungary’s decision is purely political, and aims to not only position Budapest as an opponent of the center-left EU mainstream, which Poland is increasingly leading, but also as a protector and patron of the European right-wing more broadly. The move marks yet another low in Polish-Hungarian relations, which, despite historically being close, have suffered tremendously since 2022 as the countries have pursued diametrically opposite approaches toward Russia.

4. Georgia’s pro-Russian PM warned that the country’s president would be arrested if she did not leave power by end of the year

Georgia's Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, who belongs to the populist, pro-Russian Georgian Dream party, twice threatened the country’s opposition aligned president, Salome Zourabishvili, with arrest last week if she does not leave office before the end of her term on December 29. Zourabishvili, along with the rest of the Georgian opposition, has deemed Georgian Dream’s re-election in October and their subsequent election of Mikheil Kavelashvili to the presidency as illegitimate, calling for new elections to take place. Kobakhidze statement comes as protests in Georgia continue in the wake of Georgian Dream’s suspension of the country’s EU bid.

Why it matters: Arresting Zourabishvili would be a significant escalation that would effectively amount to a coup, bringing Georgia’s political crisis to a new high after months of protests and parliamentary boycotts by the opposition. Having already lost much of its international legitimacy, removing Georgia’s sitting head of state by force would likely isolate Georgian Dream even further — but although pressure to place sanctions on its leadership would rise in the EU, such efforts would likely be blocked by Hungary and Slovakia, which have vetoed sanctions votes over the past few weeks.

5. Student protests in Serbia related to a concrete canopy collapse ramped up as dissatisfaction with Vučić’s government grew

Nearly a month and a half after a concrete canopy collapse killed over 15 people in Serbia, students and farmers in the country staged one of the country’s largest protests in decades on Sunday, with over 100,000 attendees reported. While the initial spark of the demonstrations was the perceived corruption and government ineptitude that allowed the collapse to happen, participants have since started to agitate against President Aleksandar Vučić’s rule in general, protesting against his increasingly authoritarian rule and his unwillingness to move Serbia along its EU accession path.

Why it matters: For years, Vučić has staked his rule on a nationalist agenda in which he has presented himself as the protector of the Serbian people across Serbia, Bosnia, and Kosovo, which he has refused to formally recognize or strike EU-sponsored deals with. The current protest wave is the most significant challenge to the national narrative that underpins his power as it problematizes his undemocratic practices that a growing number of Serbs see as an obstacle to Serbia’s European future. How Vučić responds to the crisis will have major consequences for Serbia’s EU ambitions.

The Eastern Flank

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