At an appearance in Tallinn, Starmer excused himself from the Q&A part of a Monday evening debate with Estonia’s Michal and Norway’s Støre, then was seen roaming in the venue’s lobby with aides leaving the two leaders to take questions from the floor.
“The Nordic and Baltic states are crying out for more U.K. leadership,” said Ed Arnold from the Royal United Services Institute think tank, adding the “the agenda was unambitious” with a “lack of urgency.”
The British-led JEF grouping was set up in 2014 at NATO’s summit in Wales and designed as a trip wire to respond to any conflict in the Baltic region. It was also a convenient platform for patching in Sweden and Finland before they joined NATO.
A decade later, Russia’s all-out war on Ukraine has turned the group into an all-NATO team of some of Kyiv’s big backers. This year, the 10 countries combined will provide Kyiv with over €12 billion in aid. Germany has pledged €7 billion for this year.
Dialing in to the JEF meeting by videoconference, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on allies to deliver on their pledges to send more air defense systems to Ukraine. Kyiv needs an extra 12 to 15 platforms, he said.
Despite Starmer’s caution on a defense spending pledge, the U.K. is leading a NATO battle group in Estonia and has pledged to have thousands more troops ready for rapid deployment to the Baltics if needed.
That commitment prompted Michal to defend JEF as a useful talking shop.
“JEF should be a much more agile responder than other formats, that’s what it’s for,” Michal told POLITICO after the leaders’ meeting, adding that it could well be expanded to share intelligence and counter hybrid threats. “JEF is working quite well to be honest.”
