Italian Defense Minister sees no point in NATO's existence in its current form

NATO no longer makes sense to exist in its current form, Italian Defense Minister Guido Crozetto believes. He expressed this opinion on the sidelines of a conference in Padua, quoted by Sky tg24.

"NATO no longer has any reason to exist in the way it is. Once the center of the world was the Atlantic Ocean, now it is the whole world," Crozetto said .

He added that once the center of the world was the United States and Europe, "now there is everything else to build relationships with".

Crozetto emphasized that if the Alliance was created to guarantee peace and mutual defense, or if it is an organization that takes on this task by engaging with the South, NATO will become something fundamentally different.

"Otherwise, we will not achieve the goal of providing security within the framework of rules that apply to everyone," the minister explained .

He added that "we often talk as if we were living 30 years ago, but everything has changed".

"We talk about Europe as if it still means something. Perhaps it could have meant something if it had once acquired political subjectivity, a common foreign policy and defense system. But this did not happen. And I am sad to say that its time has passed," the minister stated.

• On June 24-25, the NATO summit will be held in The Hague. It is expected that NATO members will make a historic decision – agree to a common goal of defense spending of 5% of GDP.
• On June 9, Rutte said that NATO members should increase air defense capabilities by 400%.