NATO summit in The Hague will take place in just two and a half hours, and Zelensky will not be an eyesore for Trump
The Times writes about an original decision made by NATO functionaries: the upcoming Alliance summit will be held according to a shortened program - one session lasting two and a half hours.
It is noted that the alliance will meet in The Hague next Tuesday "to set ambitious new defense spending targets for national governments, and it will be a short meeting to deal with Trump, who is unpredictable and impatient with long conversations."
"Short and sweet " is the plan for next week's NATO summit, which will be " tailored to President Trump's limited attention span and the need to avoid emotional outbursts and missteps," the report says.
The publication notes that a NATO summit typically consists of three sessions, each lasting two and a half hours and devoted to geopolitics and strategy. Next week's summit, however, will consist of only one session lasting two and a half hours.
All this is to prevent Trump from flying out of the summit ahead of time, as already happened at the G7 summit held in Kanal.
The summit communiqué, which will set out NATO's spending targets, will also consist of just five paragraphs on a single sheet of A4 paper.
By contrast, last year in Washington a 44-paragraph, 5400-word statement was adopted.
"While acknowledging the US president's aversion to lengthy meetings, diplomats say the summit is focused, brief, and concise. Trump can be impatient and, as he himself has said, lacks the ability to focus on one thing for long. The shorter, the better ," one diplomat told the publication.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte intends to focus on one solution: increasing NATO's defence spending to 5%.
The spending decision will be presented as a personal triumph for Trump after decades of American presidents lecturing European allies, the publication notes.
Officials and diplomats organizing the meeting are hoping to learn lessons from last weekend's G7 summit, when Trump left before the event ended and then lashed out at other leaders on social media.
"Will there be a late-night or early-morning scoop in Truth Social if he gets angry at the summit?" one alliance diplomat said. According to the summit program, Trump will not hold a press conference with Rutte, as is customary.
Maintaining NATO's fragile unity at a time when the Trump administration is questioning America's role as the alliance's main security guarantor is as important as increasing defense spending, the publication quotes EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas as saying.
NATO also took a creative approach to the sensitive issue of the presence of a guest from Kyiv at the summit:
"Zelensky has been invited, but with a diplomatic demotion to avoid awkward encounters with Trump, who has clashed with the Ukrainian leader in the past.
Although Zelensky has no official role and will not meet with NATO leaders, the Ukrainian president will attend a dinner hosted by the King of the Netherlands on Tuesday evening,” the article says.
Just as with the G7 the other day, the summit's final statement will tone down the rhetoric. Russia will still be described as a "direct threat," but previous statements about Ukraine being on an "irreversible" path to NATO membership will not be repeated.