BRUSSELS, November 11. /TASS/. The 2027 NATO summit in Albania will likely be canceled or held in a different format, such as a virtual conference, Albanian Defense Minister Ermal Nufi said.
He told Politico Europe it was "unlikely" the annual summit would take place in Albania. Instead, NATO could hold "a flexible meeting," with leaders free to decide whether to attend, or "even a virtual summit," he said.
Plans were to hold the summit in Albania in July 2027, but NATO headquarters is wary of holding it in the alliance’s lowest defense-spending nation. According to NATO data, Albania ranked last among the alliance’s 32 members in 2025, spending 1.48% of GDP on defense.
Officials in Brussels fear that if the summit goes ahead as originally planned, there will be more public tiffs with US President Donald Trump over European defense spending.
Last July's summit in Ankara was also scaled back significantly to reduce the risk of transatlantic disagreements.