Turkey is known as a meeting point, a land where East and West converge, where civilisations overlap, and this week, where a fraying alliance evolved.

The atmosphere was tense as NATO leaders jetted into Ankara on Tuesday. Russia hammered Kyiv with ballistic missiles on Monday night, while China seized the occasion to test a long-range ballistic missile in the South Pacific on the same day. The threats could hardly be more obvious.

Yet it was the internal schisms that posed an even greater danger, with US President Donald Trump berating allies for spending too little on defence and generally hesitating to follow his command. Having hailed last year’s meeting in The Hague as a superlative success, he has spent the intervening 12 months rolling out the red carpet for Russian President Vladimir Putin, ordering regime change, starting an energy crisis, and threatening partners with a land-grab that would surely have ruptured the alliance irreparably.

In this light, Secretary General Mark Rutte’s insistence that NATO is “so much stronger” thanks to Trump might have seemed fanciful. But the declaration, endorsed by all 32 countries on Wednesday, might reasonably be read as a win.

The six succinct paragraphs offered a simple affirmation of the signatories’ “ironclad commitment to our collective defence under Article 5” – wording that sounds robust but, given the context, one has to wonder whether the US pledge is sincere. More momentous was the recognition of Ukraine as a key contributor to transatlantic security – backed by a flurry of deals that will draw on the defiant nation’s drone and missile expertise, and by a further €70 billion in military assistance.

And of course there has been a leap in defence spending, to the tune of €121.5 billion over the past year – numbers that Rutte has been trumpeting in his ongoing mission to placate Trump.

But ultimately, the triumph of Ankara was not keeping POTUS sweet, but rather a more cohesive, more European alliance. Better than pleasing an overlord is learning to live without him.

Energy, environment & transport – Life beyond hydrocarbons

Agri – Parliament vetoes bid to strip soy biofuels of renewable status

Tech – Chat scanning law revolves

As Brussels’ concrete continues to bake, you could have forgiven MEPs for dreaming of looming beach holidays. But ahead of the summer recess, the European Parliament was pitched into full-blown political drama after manoeuvres by the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) revived a controversial bid to extend ‘temporary’ EU rules allowing tech companies to scan their services for traces of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), as Claudie reports.

Health – Hot and not bothered

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