The NATO summit will not be held in Albania in 2027, despite previous plans for Tirana to host the next meeting of the Alliance’s leaders. Prime Minister Edi Rama confirmed on Thursday in Dublin that there is still no agreement between the member countries on the date of the summit, while announcing that Albania can host it in 2028.
“The issue is that there is still no common position on when the summit will be held. Certainly not in 2027. In 2028, if there will be a summit, it will be held in Tirana,” declared Rama. But after the postponement of the summit, there are also reservations reported earlier by the Reuters agency. In June, Reuters reported that plans to host the summit in Albania had been called into question due to objections from the administration of US President Donald Trump and the displeasure of some member states over Albania’s low level of defense spending.
Another factor is the discussion within NATO to change the practice of holding summits every year. The alliance is considering the possibility that the high-level meetings no longer necessarily take place every year, which would also avoid a potentially tense confrontation with US President Donald Trump during the remainder of his term.
However, a NATO official stated on Thursday that the next summit of the Alliance will be held in Albania, but the date has not yet been decided. In the statement of the Hague summit, in June 2025, NATO leaders expressed the expectation that after the meeting in Turkey in 2026, the next meeting would take place in Albania. But in the statement adopted at the Ankara summit, in July 2026, neither the date nor the place of the next meeting was determined.
Thus, hosting the summit in Tirana remains on the plan, but not for the year 2027, while the year 2028 is already the alternative publicly mentioned by Prime Minister Rama.
