Europe could tighten its rules on technology and artificial intelligence. It would be “madness” if freedom of speech meant giving “the mind, the brain, the heart of my teenagers to the algorithm of big boys whose values I’m not entirely sure I share”
By The Guardian
If JD Vance’s scathing speech at the Munich Security Conference last year marked the beginning of a transatlantic split, the subsequent event this weekend, in a rainy and cold Bavaria, was where the debate over the terms of the divorce settlement began. Marco Rubio, Washington’s elected representative this year, is a diplomat, so he tempered his Trumpian tone with references to German beer, the Beatles, Dante and the Mayflower. But his speech remained a stark warning that if Europe wanted to continue on its path of civilizational decline, as this American administration sees it, America would not be interested and had different hemispheres to focus on. “Yesterday is over,” he said, and then explained what he meant by yesterday.
Mass migration that threatens civilizational extinction and the continuity of Christian culture, unlimited trade, massive welfare states, weak defenses, climate cults, granting sovereignty to international institutions, rationalization of a broken status quo by people “shackled by guilt and shame.”
Unlike Vance, he did not praise Europe’s right-wing populist parties, but he nevertheless embraced their ideology. His next stop after Munich was Budapest, where Viktor Orbán faces a battle in April to stay in power. And yet there were some, like the conference’s organizer, the distinguished German diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger, who claimed to be reassured by the conditional offer to join this journey into a new era with Donald Trump. If Europeans were reassured by Rubio, it was, as Mark Leonard, the director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, observed, “a classic example of the soft bigotry of low expectations.” A reference by the US secretary of state to his country as “a child of Europe” and the old romantics of transatlanticism melted away.
But that was not the prevailing European atmosphere at this broad conference. An iron grip has crept into the European soul around Trump, spurred on by many Democrats who attended, and there is a willingness, if not to confront him, at least to end the dependency and learn the lessons of the Greenland standoff. Talk of a stronger, independent European pillar of NATO was heard repeatedly, and was even endorsed by Keir Starmer in his speech promising greater defence integration with Europe. His Valentine’s Day speech to Europe was remarkable for two other reasons. He declared that the era of Brexit was over and, unlike Rubio, he valued social diversity and a Britain where “people who look different from each other can live together in peace”. So much for Rubio’s risk of erasing civilisation.
But German Chancellor Friedrich Merz – who is due to visit China in April – said the era of American hegemony was coming to an end, and sooner than many thought if the US believed it could act alone. “We do not believe in tariffs and protectionism, but in free trade. And we support climate agreements and the World Health Organization because we are convinced that we can only solve global challenges together,” he said. Merz signaled that Berlin is already preparing for a smaller American footprint in Europe and that Germany could someday move away from the US. “We Europeans are taking precautions. In doing so, we reach different conclusions than the administration in Washington,” he said.
The Ukraine row and Trump’s leniency toward Vladimir Putin still haunts much of Europe and is at the heart of what is dividing Trump and leaders on the continent. It was an American, Hillary Clinton, who best expressed the outrage: “The effort that Putin and Trump are making to profit from the misery and death of the Ukrainian people is a historic mistake and corrupt to the ninth degree… He has betrayed the West. He has betrayed human values.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, now a major contributor to European defense technology, said: “War reveals forms of evil that we did not expect” and asked why he thought it was Ukraine and not Russia that was being asked by Trump to make concessions. He admitted that he deeply felt the mistake of Europe’s absence from the negotiating table. Radoslaw Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister, further emphasized this point. He said it was natural for the US to take the lead in negotiations when it was providing the bulk of the military. “But we are now paying for this war. US spending on the war last year was close to zero. We are buying the weapons that will be delivered to Ukraine. There is no prospect of a package in Congress. If we are paying, and this is affecting our security and not only Ukraine’s, we deserve a seat at the table.”
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the EU Commission, chided NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte for telling Europe to dream if it thought it could defend itself without the US. On one level, the US and Europe strongly agree that Europe must take greater responsibility for its own conventional defence. Elbridge Colby, the deputy secretary of state for defence, and the closest thing the Trump administration has to a theorist, said: “People understand, 2025 was the year to reshape and refocus, and now we have a lot of support. Look at what Germany has done with a massive increase in spending.” But what the US and Europe are just beginning to debate is what the US will be allowed to do to this more independent Europe. For now there is an interim period.
Emmanuel Macron, the French president, in a speech that lost some of its impact because of its late planning, was the one who explained the broader consequences of making Europe its own protector. With new responsibilities came new rights, some of which Trump might not like. Not only did Europe deserve a seat at the negotiating table on Ukraine, since it was Europe’s existential challenge, but it had the right to talk to Putin directly, away from the US. Ideally, the US should break away from its belief that a fair deal is acceptable in the short term. In any negotiations about what might replace the collapsed arms control agreements with Russia, Europe could not once again be an observer while the US unilaterally withdrew from agreements such as the INF treaty. He learned of the US withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in the newspapers, as did all the allies, Macron complained.
He argued that, to be credible in such a negotiation, Europe needed better deep-strike capabilities to match those of Russia. European defense firms should not be discouraged from buying American military equipment. “We will only be credible if we are able to procure and produce what we need, without foreign obligations.”
Europe could tighten its rules on technology and artificial intelligence. It would be “madness” if freedom of speech meant giving “the mind, the brain, the heart of my teenagers to the algorithm of big boys whose values I am not entirely sure I share.” Above all, Macron, Merz and Starmer referred to deeply sensitive discussions they would launch on how France and the UK could make their nuclear deterrents available to Europe, thereby reducing the need for the US nuclear umbrella. It is an enormously expensive and politically fraught undertaking. Merz made a brief but pointed reference to initial talks he had held with Macron and said in an article for Foreign Affairs that he hoped to agree on the first concrete steps this year. Macron was also enthusiastic, indicating cooperation with Britain. If European sovereignty ever extends that far, it will make the US uncomfortable. But it is a sign of the times that it is on the agenda. Yesterday is truly over.