PM meeting with Prime Minister Mottley of Barbados: 25 June 2026

Downing Street's output in the final week of June was anchored by the E5 leaders' statement of June 24, issued by No 10 on behalf of the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom, joined by the NATO Secretary General from Washington, according to the GOV.UK readout.

Per the statement, the five committed to strengthening Europe's burden-sharing within NATO in close coordination with the United States, and to expanding joint development and procurement in air defence, unmanned systems, artificial intelligence and long-range firepower. They pledged to "further substantially support Ukraine in its defence against Russian aggression," including military aid, sanctions on Russia and energy-sector resilience. The leaders also backed the US–Iran memorandum of understanding and a UK- and France-led multinational military mission in the Strait of Hormuz as conditions permit.

The same No 10 sequence records the Prime Minister's meeting with Prime Minister Mia Mottley of Barbados on June 25. Separately, per the Atlantic Council, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte argued at an Atlantic Council Front Page event that the Ankara summit could wind up "even more important" than last year's in The Hague.

Background

The five signatory states are Europe's principal military powers, and the format cuts across institutional lines: the United Kingdom sits outside the European Union, so a leaders' statement grouping it with France, Germany, Italy and Poland allows defence coordination without running through Brussels machinery. Its agenda — burden-sharing, joint procurement, support for Ukraine — tracks the questions that have dominated European security since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with the standing American demand that Europe carry more of NATO's weight.

Rutte, the former Dutch prime minister, took office as NATO Secretary General in 2024; the alliance's 2025 summit in The Hague, his first as its head, centred on raising allied defence-spending commitments — the benchmark against which he measured Ankara's potential. Mottley, Barbados's prime minister since 2018, is among the most prominent international voices on climate finance and small-state debt reform through the Bridgetown Initiative; Barbados became a republic in 2021 while remaining in the Commonwealth.

What comes next

Next on the record: the E5 committed to coordinating ahead of the NATO summit in Ankara on July 7–8, per the statement — the venue where the burden-sharing and procurement commitments would be tested against alliance-wide decisions. The substance of the Mottley meeting was not detailed in the material available.