25 May, 2017
Reportedly, Germany and France will formally agree to the plan during the talks attended by U.S. President Donald Trump, who arrived in Brussels on Wednesday.
The meetings, which went on for longer than scheduled, comes at a time when the Europeans are trying to reach out to an unpredictable Mr. Trump, who has expressed skepticism about the EU, praised Brexit, and called North Atlantic Treaty Organisation - whose leaders he will meet this afternoon, "obsolete".
"I've had meetings actually with one of those".
EU President Donald Tusk, who will meet Trump along with European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker, tweeted that "I'll aim to convince POTUS that euro-atlanticism means the free world co-operating to prevent (a) post-West world order".
"Smaller countries can all show that they are doing a lot in terms of contribution".
There were no doubt sighs of relief among allies Wednesday when U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, traveling to Brussels with Trump, said that his country would, "of course", support Article 5.
The deadly bombing in Manchester has thrust the familiar scourge of terrorism back under the spotlight as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau prepares for high-level meetings with allies overseas.
An anti-terror coordinator may also be named.
NATO's Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday that allies can do more in support of the global coalition against ISIS, though he said a combat role wasn't what was under consideration. Just five of 28 allies have met a 2014 agreement to spend at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense.
Many are skeptical about this arbitrary bottom line that takes no account of effective military spending where it's needed most.
Trump is not expected to back the Paris Agreement on climate change in his European Union meeting on Thursday, but the European Union official said: "The fact that we're now in a situation where we can talk about business ... and not existential questions shows the progress we've made".
Tusk and Juncker will tell the USA president that since last year's shock Brexit vote, the European Union is "in a completely different place" after populist candidates lost in France and the Netherlands, a senior European Union official said.
Those countries have urged the Trump administration to respect the Paris Climate Agreement and to ensure that the USA meets its commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
At a meeting of G7 finance ministers and central bank governors in Bari earlier this month, USA treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin said: "We don't want to be protectionist, but we reserve our rights to be protectionist if we don't believe trade is free and fair". They harangued Trump on everything from his plans to build a wall on the U.S.
"It could raise grave doubts about the credibility of the American security guarantee and provide Russian Federation with an incentive to probe vulnerable Baltic states", Thomas Wright, a Brookings Institution scholar, wrote this week, before Trump began his first foreign trip as president. After rapturous receptions in Saudi Arabia and Israel and a polite meeting with Pope Francis in Rome, Trump will likely encounter significant protests in a capital city where he is unpopular.
Outside the heavily guarded security perimeter near the city's airport and in downtown Brussels, peace groups have planned rallies of their own.
