BRUSSELS, April 16. /TASS/. NATO and the European Union are at odds over who will control the rising defense spending in Europe, the Financial Times reported, citing sources.

A fierce dispute has emerged over how to use "an extra $1tn a year for rearmament drive in response to threats" by US President Donald Trump, the newspaper said. NATO, which has ensured Europe’s security under US leadership since World War II, has long opposed Brussels taking on defense powers. However, Washington’s demands that allies invest more in their own armed forces have pushed the EU to reconsider its arms production policy, "an area where the EU has greater expertise than NATO," the report said.

"There’s a turf war over defense industrial policy," an anonymous EU official told the FT. "This is about who manages the production scale-up, and what impact that has on the weapons Europe will be using in the future," the source added. One of the key issues is the role of US weapons in rearmament, with NATO opposing the EU’s "Buy European" approach as part of a broader industrial policy strategy.

"Both EU and Nato agree on the need for Europeans to take the lead on conventional defense of the continent. But they differ on the way to get there," Giuseppe Spatafora, research analyst at the European Union Institute for Security Studies, said. According to him, Brussels seeks to promote defense industrial cooperation within Europe, while NATO wants it to remain transatlantic.

An EU official said the alliance could define what capabilities Europeans need but had little to offer when it came to regulatory and financial tools to achieve this.