NATO and EU split over Turkey as defence reliance deepens

The contradiction was laid bare in the space of a few days. On Tuesday and Wednesday, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte stood inside Aselsan, one of Turkey's fastest-growing defence manufacturers, and told the world that the alliance faces threats from Russia, China and Iran, and that Turkey is central to meeting them. Days earlier, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had placed Turkey in the same strategic bracket as China and Russia, labelling it a competitor rather than an ally or a membership candidate. Two European institutions, two incompatible assessments, one partner caught between them.

A partnership built on necessity, not trust

The divergence is not new, but it has sharpened as the United States signals a reduced commitment to European security. Washington's ambiguity over long-term force posture and munitions supply has forced European capitals to look for alternatives. Turkey, with NATO's second-largest army and a defence industry that now exports armed drones, naval platforms and electronic warfare systems across the continent, is the most obvious candidate. Aselsan, the company Rutte visited, reported revenues of 2.3 billion euro in 2024 and supplies components to European programmes from the Eurofighter to the FCAS future combat air system. The visit was a deliberate signal: NATO's military leadership treats Ankara as indispensable.

The European Commission sees things differently. Von der Leyen's framing reflects a long-standing Brussels view that Turkey's democratic trajectory, its disputes with EU members Greece and Cyprus over maritime boundaries, and its transactional foreign policy make it a strategic rival in the eastern Mediterranean and beyond. The Commission's 2025 enlargement report, published last October, noted "serious backsliding" on rule of law and fundamental rights. That assessment has not changed. What has changed is the military arithmetic.

NATO's infrastructure shifts toward Ankara

The practical consequences are already visible in NATO's command structure. Adana, in southern Turkey, is being prepared to host a new deployable corps headquarters designated MNC-TUR, under Turkish command. Istanbul will become the base of a new maritime command focused on Black Sea security, part of the alliance's post-war planning for Ukraine. These are not symbolic gestures. The corps headquarters will be capable of commanding a multinational force of up to 60,000 troops; the maritime command will coordinate mine countermeasures, surface patrols and submarine operations in a sea that has become a primary theatre of competition with Russia.

Serhat Guvenc, a military expert at Istanbul's Kadir Has University, argues the expanded role fits Turkey's operational record. "Turkey's future contribution may take shape around these existing initiatives," he said, pointing to the wartime grain corridor agreement brokered with the United Nations in 2022 and the Black Sea Mine Countermeasures task group established with Romania and Bulgaria in 2024 as foundations to build on. Turkey has also launched an ambitious naval building programme: the first of six new Reis-class submarines, equipped with air-independent propulsion, entered sea trials in late 2025, with three more under construction at the Gölcük shipyard. The submarines are designed for the shallow, constrained waters of the Black Sea, where NATO's current undersea presence is limited.

The Erdogan-Putin axis complicates the picture

Military utility, however, does not resolve political mistrust. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has maintained close ties with Vladimir Putin throughout the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Turkey has not joined EU sanctions on Russia; trade between the two countries reached a record 62 billion dollars in 2024, driven by energy imports and tourism. Ankara has hosted several rounds of peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv, most recently in March 2025, and Erdogan presents this mediation as a diplomatic asset. The argument is that Turkey's channels to the Kremlin allow it to serve as a bridge the EU and NATO cannot.

Federico Donelli, a political scientist at the University of Trieste, says the EU remains unconvinced. "Turkey has on many occasions adopted a more ambiguous stance, even in relation to the war in Ukraine," he said. "The EU would like to know whether Turkey could be a reliable partner." The ambiguity is deliberate. Turkey voted for UN General Assembly resolutions condemning the invasion, closed the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits to Russian warships under the 1936 Montreux Convention, and supplied Bayraktar TB2 drones to Ukraine, drones that played a notable role in the early defence of Kyiv. At the same time, it has resisted pressure to restrict Russian energy flows or close its airspace to Russian civilian flights.

A mediation role that may not survive a Russian victory

Guvenc warns that the mediation calculus could shift sharply if the war ends on Russian terms. "If peace comes on Putin's terms, the potential Russian threat to Turkey's interests will increase several-fold," he said. "Russia emerging from the conflict with substantial gains will be a very different story." That assessment reflects a long-standing Turkish strategic anxiety: a dominant Russia in the Black Sea and the Caucasus limits Turkey's room for manoeuvre. The Ottoman and Russian empires fought twelve wars between the 16th and 20th centuries; the memory shapes Ankara's threat perception today. A Russian victory would not only embolden Moscow in the Black Sea but could also encourage further Russian pressure in Syria, where Turkish and Russian forces operate in close proximity, and in the South Caucasus, where Turkey supports Azerbaijan against Armenian forces backed by Moscow.

This dynamic explains why Turkey has not fully aligned with the EU's sanctions regime. It is hedging. But hedging has a cost. European officials privately acknowledge that Turkey's defence industry benefits from the very ambiguity Brussels criticises. Aselsan, Baykar and Turkish Aerospace Industries have expanded European market share precisely because they offer capable systems without the political conditions attached to US or Franco-German programmes. The Bayraktar TB2 and the newer Akinci UCAV have been purchased by Poland, Romania and Ukraine; the Ada-class corvettes have been ordered by Pakistan and Ukraine; the TF-X fighter programme, still in development, has attracted interest from several NATO air forces seeking alternatives to the F-35.

The July summit as a moment of truth

The tension between military indispensability and political unpredictability will take centre stage at the NATO summit in Ankara on 7-8 July 2026. The choice of venue is itself a statement: the first NATO summit in Turkey since 2004. Rutte has framed the meeting as a chance to "adapt the alliance for a new era of burden-sharing." European leaders will arrive with a list of demands: more air defence, more ammunition production, more naval presence in the Baltic and Black Seas. Turkey will arrive with its own: modernisation of the EU-Turkey customs union, visa liberalisation, and a revival of the moribund accession process, or at least a high-level dialogue that confers political legitimacy.

The customs union, last updated in 1995, excludes agriculture, services and public procurement. Turkey has sought an upgrade since 2016; the EU has linked progress to rule-of-law benchmarks Ankara has not met. Visa liberalisation, promised in the 2016 migration deal, stalled over anti-terror legislation the EU considers too broad. The accession process has been frozen since 2018. Erdogan knows European leaders need Turkish military capacity more than Turkey needs EU market access in the short term. That asymmetry gives Ankara leverage.

European divisions on how to handle Ankara

European capitals are not united. Poland and the Baltic states favour deeper military integration with Turkey, seeing it as a necessary counterweight to Russia on NATO's eastern and southern flanks. France and Germany are more cautious, insisting that political criteria cannot be ignored without undermining the EU's own credibility. Greece and Cyprus block any EU-level upgrade that does not address their maritime disputes. The result is a patchwork: bilateral defence agreements proliferate, Poland signed a defence industry cooperation agreement with Turkey in 2023, Romania followed in 2024, while the EU-level relationship remains stuck in a holding pattern.

This fragmentation suits Erdogan. Bilateral deals allow him to bypass EU unanimity requirements and extract specific concessions. But it also means there is no single European interlocutor capable of offering a comprehensive framework. The NATO summit may produce a declaration welcoming Turkey's enhanced role, but it will not resolve the underlying contradiction. Von der Leyen's Commission will continue to treat Turkey as a competitor in its strategic compass; Rutte's NATO will continue to treat it as a pillar of collective defence. The gap between the two is where Turkish diplomacy operates.

What happens when the war ends

The deeper question is what happens after the Ukraine war. If a negotiated settlement leaves Russia in control of significant Ukrainian territory, the Black Sea becomes a Russian lake in all but name. Turkey's control of the straits, guaranteed by the Montreux Convention, would become the primary choke point for NATO access. Ankara would face intense pressure from both sides: Russia would demand restrictions on NATO warship transits; NATO would demand the opposite. Turkey's ability to mediate would be tested as never before. Guvenc's warning, that a victorious Russia multiplies the threat to Turkey, suggests Ankara may eventually be forced to choose. For now, it chooses both.