From heads and government managers to ministers and representatives of organizations such as the EU and NATO have once again gathered in Munich.
Now that this year’s security conference has been completed, it can be stated that it has been characterized by a harsher tone than usual from the United States.
The newly appointed Vice President JD Vance gave a speech that was expected to be about Ukraine. But he did not even mention the war -torn country. Instead, the speech was a “frontal attack on Europe”, according to SVT’s correspondent Christoffer Wendick.
Vance claimed that the threat to Europe is not Russia, China or any other outside player – but rather “comes from within”.
– People sat like birdhouses in the audience and didn’t really understand what they had experienced, says Wendick, who was there.
He describes it as that everything has vibrated around the speech.
The European leaders have described the message from several of the American politicians as “brutal”. At the same time, they may not have been surprised by the content, as much has been things that President Donald Trump has already talked about.
Different messages
But it really started already on Wednesday, when US Defense Minister Pete Hegseth visited the NATO headquarters in Brussels. He then said, among other things, that a Ukrainian NATO membership is not “a realistic result of a negotiated settlement” with Russia.
In an interview with SVT, Defense Minister Pål Jonson (M) said that they have received “slightly different messages” from the new administration. Something that more people have found over the weekend.
– It is a view that we who have been monitoring the conference also experience, says Wendick.
Summit in Paris
On Saturday night, the next bang came, when US special envoy Keith Kellogg, stated that the European countries will not have a place at the negotiating table when Ukraine’s future is to be negotiated with Russia.
Among other Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard (M) has replied that Europe must have a place.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron has reacted by calling a summit in Paris on Monday. NATO chief Mark Rutte has announced that he will participate.
Denmark Prime Minister Mette Fredriksen will represent NB8, the Nordic-Baltic countries, at the meeting.