"I would like to see much more pooling of our capabilities, especially in areas such as vital enablers -- transport, helicopters, or in research and development, or in harmonising force structures and training methods," he said.

"It is absolutely critical that all of the capabilities that we are able to generate from this pool of forces are equally available to both NATO and the European Union," Scheffer said at the Brussels Forum conference.

"If we duplicate, or worse go off in different directions, we will both fail," he said.

Twenty-one EU nations are also members of NATO, and many have been stretched by military commitments in security and peacekeeping operations in places like Afghanistan, Kosovo and Chad.

Helicopters -- both attack and transport -- are notoriously hard to find.

"We need to exploit the opportunities of common capabilities -- strategic airlift, logistics -- far more energetically," Scheffer said, and "look for more synergies with the European Union."

Scheffer said that NATO nations must also increase defence spending to match their security ambitions, with very few of the allies spending the target two percent of gross domestic product.

"I think that NATO nations are soon going to have to increase NATO's budget to match the growing list of responsibilities," he said.

"Our resources have to match our priorities, and you cannot reconcile forever more performance with a zero growth budget."

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