Macron Says Burden Sharing Within NATO Not Fair With US Taking Care of EU Security

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th February, 2021) French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday called the burden sharing within NATO unfair, as for many decades the United States was the only member in charge of security in Europe.

According to the French leader, the European Union has to be able to consider itself as a common and relevant entity, to decide for itself and pay much more attention to the critical items of the sovereign entity, of which defense issues are part of.

"This decision is not only compatible with NATO but also consistent with NATO. I strongly believe that this push, this decision to make more together at the European scale is definitely in the interest of the us. Why? Because when you look at the past decades in NATO, the US was the only one in charge in a certain way of our own security. The burden sharing � as some of our former leaders pushed the concept � was not fair. This is true," Macron said during an online speech at the Atlantic Council.

The president slammed the concept as "a lose-lose approach," calling it unacceptable that US soldiers were in Europe, involved on such a scale without clear and direct interest.

"At a point of time, we have to be more in charge of our neighborhood. If you want to promote and preserve the reality of the EU, you want the EU to be in a situation to protect its people. This is why strategic autonomy means first having European players investing much more for themselves. I decided myself an increasing budget for our defense," Macron added.

Former US President Donald Trump has repeatedly pressed NATO allies on equitable burden-sharing, demanding that they pay more as opposed to having Washington foot most of the bill. Trump went so far as to symbolically punish Berlin for falling short on its NATO dues by pulling around 12,000 troops from Germany.