Emmanuel Macron and Sir Keir Starmer will on Friday host a summit to draw up an international plan to secure the Strait of Hormuz after the war ends, amid scepticism over whether it will work and haggling over who should attend the meeting.
The French and UK leaders are expected to brief US President Donald Trump after the meeting of the “coalition of the willing”, but privately some western officials say the plan is fraught with military difficulty. One said: “The whole point is to pretend there is a plan, when there isn’t.”
Meanwhile, France has rejected a British proposal that Mark Rutte, Nato secretary-general, and Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission president, should attend the meeting in Paris, according to three officials briefed on the summit. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italian premier Giorgia Meloni will attend in person.
They said that the Élysée twice removed their names from Starmer’s proposed invite list, with France preferring to focus participation on heads of government. Downing Street declined to comment.
Officials preparing the summit said Trump would not take part, nor would other US officials. It is expected to bring together about 40 countries that last month signed a memo expressing their “readiness to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the strait”.
One official said: “The US won’t be on the call, but you can expect Starmer and Macron to brief the president after the meeting to keep him in the loop.”
Macron has been adamant that France will not act in the strait until a ceasefire takes hold, although he has already sent an aircraft carrier and frigates to the eastern Mediterranean. Other European leaders hold the same view that no action can take place until both Iran and the US stop hostilities around the strait.
European leaders will work on a three-step plan, according to those involved in preparing Friday’s talks, starting with diplomatic and political co-operation to establish the means required to secure the strait for shipping.
There will then be a discussion about providing logistical support to ships trapped in the strait and requiring support to navigate out, including reassurance and monitoring of any potential hostile activity.
The third leg, according to western officials, will be “military reassurance for freedom of navigation”, including naval deployments to the region. However, this final stage would only take place once “lasting peace has been established”.
Speaking before the summit, Starmer said: “We must reassure commercial shipping and support mine clearance operations to ensure a return to global stability and security.
“Planning is under way now, with a view to deploying a combined military effort as soon as conditions allow. The international mission will be strictly defensive in nature.”
An Élysée official said France’s position was that there can be no mines in the strait, no tolls for passing vessels as Iran has demanded, and that navigation conditions should return to what they were prewar.
Countries expected to attend include European Nato allies, Australia, Canada, Japan and South Korea.
Military planners from the “coalition of the willing” are said by western officials to have identified dozens of problems with any escort operation in the strait, which is not expected to involve the US, with no easy solutions.
A European government official said expectations were very low about the meeting yielding anything concrete despite the “very French” attempt at organising a grand event. They described it as a “response to Trump’s pressure”.
Merz has indicated, including in a call with Trump, that Germany was ready to participate in a maritime initiative but only under certain conditions.
The Bundeswehr has participated in missions abroad, including to Afghanistan, but it is tightly constrained by the constitution. Deployments must be part of a collective mandate — such as one issued by the EU, Nato or the UN — and be approved by parliament.
On Thursday, Merz reiterated he was in favour “in principle” of German participation but cautioned that the conditions — provisional ceasefire, collective mandate and parliament approval — were far from being met. He added that there were “good arguments” in favour of US participation in the naval mission.
France is more wary of a US role. “What we need . . . [is] to be sure that we have a commitment from Iran not to fire on ships passing through, and a commitment from the United States not to block any vessel entering or leaving the strait,” said the Élysée official.
Trump has been scathing about the willingness of Nato countries to help the US in its war with Iran, repeatedly saying that reopening the strait was Europe’s problem since they relied more on the energy exports that come through there than the US.
The tussle is similar to the one that Europeans and the US have had over how to ensure the security of Ukraine if and when the war with Russia comes to an end.
Trump has sought to pressure Europe to shoulder the burden. But after more than a year of UK and France-led talks to bring together a “coalition of the willing” that could deploy troops and support Ukraine’s military, the pledges remain largely theoretical.
Trump has been particularly withering about Starmer, whom he has said is “not Winston Churchill”.
Starmer has made a political virtue of his decision not to let Britain be “dragged into this war” but has also signalled the UK’s willingness to help lead a coalition of countries to secure the Strait of Hormuz once fighting had stopped.
Cartography by Steven Bernard
www.ft.com
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