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Europe to risk being "global spectator": NATO chief

07 May 2013 02:57 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Europe will risk becoming "a global spectator" if European nations continue to slash their defense expenditures due to the current economic slowdown, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen warned on Monday, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

"Europeans must understand that soft power alone is really no power at all. Without hard capabilities to back up its diplomacy, Europe will lack credibility and influence," Rasmussen said while addressing the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs.

"It will risk being a global spectator, rather than the powerful global actor that it can be and should be."

The NATO chief said Europe's global role would "inevitably" suffer from a continuing decline in European defense expenditures and "Europe will be unable to participate in crisis management."

"The only way to avoid this is by holding the line on defence spending. To stop the cuts. And to start reinvesting in security as soon as our economies recover," he said.

In addition, Rasmussen called on European nations to develop a global perspective and to look outwards, not inwards.

European nations must have political will to use defense capabilities to deal with regional and global security challenges, and to better share the security burden with the United States, he said.