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NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speaks at a news conference in Bucharest, Romania, Jan. 31, 2019. NATO stays the bedrock of the European security and the efforts of European Union (EU) for defence are complementary to and not competing with NATO's, the Alliance's Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said here Thursday.(Xinhua/Cristian Cristel)

BUCHAREST, Jan. 31 (Xinhua) -- NATO stays the bedrock of the European security and the efforts of European Union (EU) for defence are complementary to and not competing with NATO's, the Alliance's Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said here Thursday.

"It must be clear to us that the EU cannot replace NATO... We must make sure we do not weaken the transatlantic connection," Stoltenberg told a joint conference with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis after their meeting.

"The European unity cannot substitute itself to the transatlantic unity. NATO stays the European security's bedrock," he said, adding that after the Brexit, 80 percent of the NATO defence spending will be provided by non-EU allies, while four of the fighting groups in the Baltic states and Poland will be led by non-EU NATO allies, which are the U.S., Canada and the UK.

According to the NATO chief, the EU's common efforts in defence "help develop new military capabilities, solve part of the fragmentation of the European defence industry and improve defence spending."

Iohannis said, in his turn, that nobody wants to create a NATO-EU competition.

"We all want to make sure that NATO's projects and the ones that are developed in the EU are complementary, that is, to mutually strengthen and not to compete," the president added, stressing that "we must play a very important role within NATO, but not in NATO's place or in parallel with NATO."

Stoltenberg is in Bucharest to attend the two-day informal meeting of defence ministers of the EU member states.

The meeting, chaired by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, is the first ministerial level event to be hosted by Romania since it took over the Presidency of the EU Council at the beginning of the year. United Nations Under Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix was invited to participate in the discussion.??