NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg welcomed unprecedented levels of cooperation between the EU and NATO ahead of a meeting with the EU Foreign Affairs Council, according to the NWTO website.
The Secretary General noted that stronger European defence can contribute to fairer burden-sharing within NATO, but stressed the need for complementarity between NATO and EU efforts.
"NATO remains the bedrock for European security," Stoltenberg stressed.
On November 6, the French president Emmanuel Macron said that the European Union should have a "real European army" independent of the United States in order to defend itself and guarantee stability in the region. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has backed Macron's proposal, stressing that a unified European army could be a "good supplement to NATO."
