European diplomats call for NATO political unity

BERLIN – Top diplomats from Germany and Norway are pushing back at questions about NATO’s relevance, saying the alliance needs political cohesion to succeed.

Speaking at a forum hosted by Berlin’s Koerber Stiftung, Norwegian Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Soereide said Tuesday “everything we do as a military alliance, our strength as a military alliance, rests heavily on our ability to be politically united.”

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized alliance members for not spending enough on defence, while branding NATO “obsolete.” French President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, shook the alliance with his criticism of a perceived lack of U.S. leadership, lamenting its “brain death.”

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas says the “political unity of the alliance needs to be secured” because “a decoupling of American and European security would be in nobody’s interest.”