Defense expenditures of European states will need to increase by up to 10% and there will be a need for “acquiring their own nuclear capabilities,” said NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Monday, at a meeting with European Union parliamentarians, according to The Guardian.
He evoked this costly and unlikely scenario in the event that the states of the old continent choose to defend themselves without the contribution of the United States of America.
“Keep dreaming if you think Europe can defend itself,” he pointed out, insisting on the idea that European NATO members should spend an additional “billions and billions of euros”.
According to Rutte, “Europe needs the United States and the United States, in turn, needs Europe”.
The Secretary General of the alliance argued that although US priorities evolve, there will always be a very strong conventional American presence on the continent.
He further argued against a potential European alternative to NATO, without the participation of the United States, stating that such a construction “would be complicated, and Russian President Vladimir Putin would be delighted (to see this)”.
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