BUCHAREST — NATO lawmakers called on governments not to cut defence spending, warning that this could damage security, in a draft resolution to be submitted to a vote on Monday.

Gathered in Bucharest for the 57th annual session of NATO’s Parliamentary Assembly, legislators on Saturday called on member states to ‘abstain from making spending cuts at a level that would damage national and international security in this period of fiscal consolidation’.

‘The ongoing Libya operation provides an immediate illustration of the tension between national security obligations and fiscal realities,’ they said.

The resolution warns that Europe risks ‘strategic irrelevance’ unless it bolsters its defence spending and stresses that the defence gap between Europe and the United States ‘could undermine the solidarity which has long held together this Alliance’.

Frank Boland, NATOâ€™s director of Force Planning, revealed data showing that 18 of the 28 member countries had cut defence spending since 2008 and only three were meeting the target of spending at least 2.0 percent of Gross Domestic Product on defence.

The US share in NATO defence spending has risen to 77 percent up from 61 percent a decade ago, he said.

‘We are facing a serious situation in terms of burden sharing.’

Romania’s Foreign Minister Teodor Baconschi said that ‘states should be more receptive to identifying new ways of working together in order to build security with fewer resources’ and pleaded in favour of the ‘smart defence’ concept launched by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta earlier this week called on NATO allies to work closely to pool resources at a time of austerity on both sides of the Atlantic, stressing that the US budget was ‘facing dramatic cuts with real implications for alliance capability’.

Rasmussen is expected to address the over 250 parliamentarians on defence budget concerns on Monday, during the assembly’s plenary session.