European countries have no choice but to work together on defense matters if they want to maintain their capability levels, the chief executive of the European Defense Agency said Thursday.

Claude-France Arnould, who manages the agency created in 2004 to promote defense cooperation among European Union member states, expressed concern about military spending cuts by EU nations still reeling from the global crisis.

"Now there is a feeling that there is no choice: it's either losing capability, losing the technology, or be together," Arnould said at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank.

"There's a widespread feeling in Europe that if we don't cooperate, some key capabilities could disappear."

Given the economic difficulties plaguing the eurozone, Arnould said that the 26 nations participating in the EDA -- Denmark is the only member of the EU that is not included -- needed to learn to do more with less.

"I hope we will have a European capability that will serve both military and civilian requirements," said Arnould, who met with Pentagon officials on Thursday.

She hailed comments from former US defense secretary Robert Gates, who in June condemned the drop in European defense budgets, as "a welcome wake-up call."

"The US won't do the job for the Europeans without them," Arnould added.

Arnould, who took up her post at the start of the year, noted that during the NATO air strike campaign in Libya, "the Europeans had to rely very strongly on the United States" for refueling and surveillance missions.

The EDA chief executive said the United States understood the need for the development of Europe's defense capabilities outside the NATO framework.

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