French Defense Minister Herve Morin said during a meeting of European Union defense ministers that EU states should draw up a list of capabilities which should stay in the national domain and those that should be shared.
"At the rate we're going, we risk Europe gradually becoming a protectorate - 50 years from now we'll become a pawn in the balance between the new powers and we'll be under a joint dominion of China and America," Morin told reporters at the meeting in the Belgian city of Ghent.
"All the countries of the world are re-arming and the Europeans, who already before the crisis had really weak budgets, have now carried out new reductions."
Morin said most European nations had abandoned the idea of ensuring they had sufficient military capability to exert more influence in the world, but Europe must help maintain stability and prevent the spread of Islamist militancy in Africa.
Morin said European countries should increase cooperation in defense to boost overall capabilities, and underlined that France was expanding cooperation with Britain and Germany.
"The question of European capacity is above all a political question: do the Europeans want to be actors on the international scene, or do they want to be actors in a script that others have written?" he asked, reflecting a debate in the EU on how to improve its global standing.
A European defense official said other ministers at the meeting agreed with Morin's proposal to draw up lists of capabilities to be shared or not, but believed it was not the time to become overly ambitious.
European governments have introduced austerity measures to prevent another financial crisis and avert a sovereign debt crisis, prompting protests.
The official said it was important now to implement agreements that have been reached on areas such as military training and education, logistics and surveillance.
"It's not so much the combat capacity because they all agree that that is nearly impossible to share," he said.
The official also said support was growing for the creation of a multinational helicopter wing that could be on standby for use in emergencies and also to support combat forces.
Morin said EU institutions should push for more cooperation, but the bloc's foreign affairs chief, Catherine Ashton, did not attend the ministers' meeting. Ashton attended the United Nations General Assembly in New York and addressed the Ghent meeting by video conference.
"We need the institutions to show willing; Mrs.Ashton should carry forward the European ambition - the states can't do it on their own," he said.
Ashton, a Briton, drew criticism for not attending the previous informal meeting of EU defense ministers in Spain. The European defense official said "eyebrows were raised that the high representative was again not here."
