NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg recalled on Wednesday evening, 30 January, that the EU could not replace the Alliance in defence matters.
“We must [...] understand that European unity is important, but it cannot replace transatlantic unity”, he explained upon his arrival at the informal Defence Council in Bucharest.
“The two World Wars and the Cold War taught us that North America and Europe must stand together. And that is NATO's main task - to ensure that Europe and North America stand together and meet many security challenges”, he said, while the United States has repeatedly threatened to leave the Alliance and Europeans want to develop a Defence Union.
“The EU can under no circumstances replace NATO”, he warned. He recalled that after Brexit, 80% of NATO's defence spending will come from non-EU NATO allies and three of the four battle groups deployed in Eastern Europe will be led by non-EU allies.
If Europeans do not want to replace the Alliance, they want to strengthen its European pillar, Didier Reynders told EUROPE and EFE. According to him, “this logic of strengthening European defence” also involves strengthening NATO's European pillar. “The will is really to move towards a strengthening of European collaboration within NATO, to take more and more responsibility for our security on the European continent and around the Mediterranean, but also in the East”, he explained. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)