Ukraine will not be invited to join NATO during next week's summit in The Hague, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys said on Wednesday.
"This issue is certainly not on the NATO agenda and nobody has formulated an expectation that there will be an invitation in The Hague, nor have we heard that from the Ukrainians themselves," Budrys told BNS. "There is no such expectation that there will be breakthrough decisions, neither before the Washington summit nor now before the Hague summit – it is not on the agenda".
His comments come as NATO leaders prepare to gather in the Netherlands for a summit closely watched for any signals about Ukraine’s path toward Alliance membership, particularly in light of shifting geopolitical dynamics following the return of Donald Trump to the US presidency in January.
Budrys said that Lithuania would use the summit to maintain a clear focus on Ukraine, emphasising that Kyiv and NATO countries remain part of a shared security space.
Speaking ahead of a closed joint session of Lithuania’s parliamentary Committees on National Security and Defence and Foreign Affairs, Budrys said that Lithuania would emphasize the unity of the Alliance and the importance of the US role in the collective deterrence and defence policy, as well as focus on Ukraine and the issue of Russia's direct threat.
NATO first declared in 2008 that Ukraine would eventually become a member. At the 2023 Vilnius summit, member states stopped short of extending an invitation but agreed that Kyiv would be invited once conditions were met and allies reached a consensus.
However, Ukraine’s prospective membership has become a point of contention amid renewed pressure from the Trump administration for Kyiv and Moscow to enter peace negotiations. Russia, for its part, has increasingly demanded that NATO membership for Ukraine be taken off the table as a precondition for any potential ceasefire.
Budrys said that one of Lithuania's key objectives at next week’s NATO summit in The Hague is to ensure that Ukraine is explicitly referenced in the final joint declaration.
"I believe we will have a document – there hasn’t been a summit without one – and I think we’ll manage to achieve our goals. I won’t get ahead of the process, as there is still a great deal of intense work ahead," Budrys told reporters following a parliamentary committee meeting.
Ukraine submitted its formal application for NATO membership in September 2022, just months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion. However, the country has yet to receive an official invitation to join the Alliance, largely due to the difficulty of reaching a consensus among all 32 member states.
At the 75th NATO summit in Washington this July leaders affirmed their support for Ukraine’s “irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including membership in NATO”.
Asked whether the language in The Hague declaration regarding Ukraine might be weaker than in earlier summits in Washington or Vilnius, Budrys said the situations are different.
“It’s really up to the experts to judge which is weaker – what the expectations were, what the context was then and what it is now. The situations are very different,” the minister noted.
Newsletter
Every Friday morning.
