While the Munich security conference is debating the protection against Russia, the US Vice President pursues another agenda. JD Vance did not warn of external enemies, but threatened the Europeans.
Bastian Brauns reports from Washington
The Munich Security Conference has been an event for decades at which external threats and the collective defense are discussed. But of all people there, shortly before the third anniversary of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, the US Vice President JD Vance gave a speech that ignored this greatest danger since World War II.
The speech of JD Vance thus placed nothing less than a political bomb, in the middle of a room of allies. While European heads of state and government hoped that the United States would comment on Europe, the Vice President refused to address external threats at all.
video | US Vice President Vance will say against Europe in speech in Munich
Instead, Vance focused almost exclusively on what he described as “threats from the inside”. In sound and content, this corresponded exactly to what Donald Trump and JD Vance in the United States have been propagating for months: a bitter fight against political opponents and democratic institutions. And he is now wearing this fight to Europe.
Trump’s Vice President began his speech with some flattering words for the hospitality of the Germans, expressed his recognition of the importance of the conference and also expressed his condolences for the attack in Munich from the previous day. But then he quickly switched to his actual topic.
“The threat that worries me the most concerns about Europe is not Russia, not China, and not any other external actor,” said Vance. What worries him instead is “the threat from the inside, the withdrawal of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values that share it with the United States.”
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This explanation was not only unexpected, but an unprecedented provocation. In the middle of a war on European soil, the second highest representative of the US government rejected Russia and China as primary threats. Instead, he concentrated consistently on internal political developments in Europe and especially in Germany, where the Bundestag election takes place in a few days.
JD Vance used the Munich security conference to interfere in the democratic process of one of the most important allies in the United States, something that has never existed until then. He referred to allegedly growing authoritarian tendencies in European governments and suggested that Europe moved towards repressive politics.
He consistently twisted the facts: For example, when he claimed that “ugly terms from the Soviet era” were used in Europe words such as “misinformation” and “disinformation”. In the United States, on the other hand, there is fear that there is actually “hiding firmly rooted interests” behind it in order to suppress alternative opinions in order to ultimately even manipulate elections.
The Vice President went even further: he accused the European governments of actively suppressing freedom of expression. He criticized the EU and individual European countries for their efforts to regulate online disinformation and hate speech: “I look at Brussels, where EU commissioners warn that they intend to simply switch off social media in times of civil unrest as soon as they Discover what they ‘value’ as ‘hated content’, complained of Vance.
