Those in the bloc who think otherwise can \u201ckeep dreaming,\u201d Mark Rutte has told the European Parliament<\/p>\n
The EU would be unable defend itself without the US, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has said. The bloc\u2019s members would have to spend up to 10% of their GDP on their militaries, which could still be insufficient, he told the European Parliament on Monday.
\nHis remarks came amid continued calls by some EU officials to make the bloc less dependent on America for security. In mid-January, Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius claimed the EU needed a 100,000-strong standing army to be capable of independent action.
\nAccording to Rutte, such plans would be unrealistic. \u201cIf anyone thinks here, again, that the European Union or Europe as a whole can defend itself without the US, keep on dreaming. You can\u2019t,\u201d he stated.
\nThe secretary general warned that those who \u201creally want to go it alone\u201d should \u201cforget that you can ever get there with 5%\u201d of GDP spent on defense. The bloc would need to at least double that sum, as well as to invest in its own nuclear capability, which \u201ccosts billions, billions and billions of euros,\u201d he argued, adding that going alone would mean that \u201cyou will lose.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
US scales down commitments to defend European allies<\/p>\n
NATO agreed to the 5% spending threshold at a summit in The Hague last year. The demand was originally made by US President Donald Trump, who has since received endless praise from Rutte. On Monday, he once again lauded the president for making nations like \u201cSpain and Italy and Belgium and Canada\u201d live up to their current 2% spending commitments, as well as agreeing to the new threshold.
\nWashington has repeatedly stated it would be scaling back commitments to its European allies and urging them to take on greater responsibility for their own security. Last week, the Pentagon said it would prioritize \u201cdefending the US Homeland and deterring China.\u201d
\nThe EU has also felt sidelined in the US-mediated Ukraine peace talks and clashed with Washington over Trump\u2019s push to acquire Greenland, which some European politicians claimed could put an end to \u201can era of 80 years of Atlantism.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Those in the bloc who think otherwise can \u201ckeep dreaming,\u201d Mark Rutte has told the European Parliament The EU would be unable defend itself without the US, NATO Secretary General…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}