Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said Friday that NATO “as it is, no longer has a reason to exist,” and that the EU does not count on the global stage.
Crosetto made the remarks on the sidelines of a conference in Padua, according to Italian news agency ANSA.
“Before, U.S. and Europe used to be the center of the world — now, there is everything else with which a relationship must be built,” he said, adding: “We often talk as if we were still living 30 years ago, but everything has changed.”
Crosetto’s comments come ahead of the NATO leaders’ summit in The Hague next week, where the alliance is likely to agree on a higher spending target of 5 percent of GDP to placate U.S. President Donald Trump.
Among the leaders attending is Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. At a meeting in Rome earlier this month with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, her office “reaffirmed support for Ukraine and the Atlantic Alliance’s role as an essential pillar for collective defence.”
But according to Crosetto, NATO has failed in its original mission.
“If NATO was created to guarantee peace and mutual defense, it must either become an organization that takes on this task by engaging with the Global South — and thus become something profoundly different — or we will not achieve the goal of having security within rules that apply to everyone,” he said.
Most NATO members see the alliance as playing a key role in spearheading the rearmament and defense of Europe to fend off the growing threat posed by Russia.
Italy has traditionally been one of the alliance’s lowest spenders — although the government said in April that this year, it will hit NATO’s current target of spending 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense.
Crosetto as well said both the EU and the United Nations no longer count on the global stage.
“We talk about Europe as if Europe mattered; perhaps once, it could have mattered, if it had given itself a political role that it did not give itself — if it had equipped itself with a foreign policy or defense,” he said.
“But its time is over — and I say this with sadness. The world has changed.”
“The U.N. counts in the world as much as Europe does: nothing, less than a national team, less than China, less than India, or less than Israel,” he added.
NATO’s defense buildup is controversial in Italy. Former Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte is calling for a counter-NATO gathering in The Hague for June 24 — just a day ahead of the summit for alliance leaders.
Laura Kayali contributed reporting.
This article has been updated to clarify the minister’s comments refer to NATO “as it is.”
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