French Minister Urges EU Military Boost

French Minister of Defense Herve Morin (R) pictured with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Sept 16, 2010. Photo by EPA/BGNES

France's Foreign Minister Herve Morin has urged EU states to come closer together militarily warning of a risk of domination by China and the USA.

During Friday's meeting of EU Defense Ministers in Ghent, Belgium, including Bulgarian Defense Minister Gen. Anyu Angelov, Morin said the EU member states should divide military capabilities between those that should be reserved for the nation states and those that should be shared.

Morin pointed out that most European nations had abandoned projects to project military influence but pointed out that the EU must still maintain stability and prevent the spread of Islamist militancy in Africa, reported international media as cited by BGNES.

"At the rate we're going, we risk Europe gradually becoming a protectorate -- 50 years from now we'll become a pawn in the balance between the new powers and we'll be under a joint dominion of China and America. All the countries of the world are re-arming and the Europeans, who already before the crisis had really weak budgets, have now carried out new reductions." Morin told reporters at the meeting in the Belgian city of Ghent.

"The question of European capacity is above all a political question: do the Europeans want to be actors on the international scene, or do they want to be actors in a script that others have written?" he declared.

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