France and Italy told their European partners in Berlin on Wednesday they are prepared to commit to a military mission in the Strait of Hormuz — but only after Washington and Tehran finalize a memorandum of understanding covering nuclear inspectors and frozen Iranian assets, conditions still unmet at the time of the meeting.
The disclosure came as the leaders of Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Poland convened under the European Group of Five format, with the July 7–8 NATO summit in Ankara as their immediate horizon. The group simultaneously pledged to intensify pressure on Moscow through expanded sanctions, economic measures, and sustained support for Ukraine’s energy infrastructure — a dual commitment that placed Europe’s security posture on two separate fronts inside a single joint statement.
That pairing — Eastern Europe and the Middle East inside one communiqué — reflected how far European security planning has shifted since 2022.
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Germany’s Friedrich Merz, who hosted the session, named Russia’s takeaway directly: “Ukraine remains strong.” The five governments signed a joint communiqué pledging to “further substantially support Ukraine in its defence against Russian aggression” through expanded sanctions, sustained economic pressure on Moscow, and direct reinforcement of Ukrainian energy infrastructure — sectors repeatedly targeted by Russian strikes since the war’s earliest months.
The summit was also explicitly aimed beyond Moscow. Merz confirmed he would personally brief both US President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the Berlin conclusions — a move that framed the E5 gathering as preparation for the larger alliance meeting to follow. A successful Ankara summit, the German chancellor said, would strengthen transatlantic ties and draw European members closer together as a bloc.
Trump, along with leaders from 31 other NATO states, is expected in the Turkish capital on July 7. At the preceding G7 summit in Evian-les-Bains, he said he would do whatever it takes to end the Russia-Ukraine war, describing his talks with other heads of government there as productive.
On Hormuz, French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni were precise about sequencing. Both said a European military role there would require the formal completion of the US-Iran MOU — including settlement of disputes over nuclear inspection access and the release of frozen Iranian assets. A ceasefire is already in effect as a result of earlier negotiations, but a finalized agreement had not been reached as of the Berlin summit. Until that document is locked in, the European offer of a naval presence in the strait remains conditional.
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The Berlin session also closed a chapter that few at the table would have anticipated two years ago. Outgoing British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, attending in what may be his final appearance at a multilateral summit before leaving office, received praise from each of his four counterparts. Merz credited what he called Starmer’s collaborative instincts, Macron cited his strategic judgment, and Meloni pointed to consistent bilateral cooperation. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk went furthest, saying Starmer’s engagement had helped Europe reconstitute itself as a coherent force — and that, in practice, the five nations had “forgotten Brexit for a while.”
The remark landed against a decade of political friction. Britain formally exited the European Union in 2020, and the diplomatic fallout strained relationships across the continent — arguments over trade, fisheries, financial services, and border arrangements consuming European diplomatic bandwidth for years. Those ties have since been quietly rebuilt through defense and security channels. Tusk’s observation suggested the reconstruction had gone further than most formal accounts acknowledged.
The E5 session concluded with a video call to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, placing the group in direct coordination with alliance leadership ahead of Ankara.
For Merz, Berlin served purposes the joint statement could only partially reflect. The choreography — a message aimed at Putin, a briefing line to Trump and Erdogan, and a conditional signal toward Tehran — captured the scope of what European capitals are now being asked to manage at once. The session’s final note was domestic as much as diplomatic: a summit in Berlin, attended by four allies and a departing British prime minister, unanimous in purpose, had produced a coherent European position before the United States arrived.