Vance's Munich speech irks European leaders

European leaders reacted angrily to US Vice-President JD Vance's speech at the Munich Security Conference on Friday, in which he accused European governments of overturning elections, ignoring the will of their people and doing nothing to halt illegal migration.

"The threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia. It's not China, it's not any other external actor. And what I worry about is the threat from within," Vance said.

"The retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America.

"If you're running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you."

Citing specific cases, Vance criticized the actions taken by European authorities, from the European Commission and Sweden to Germany and Romania. He pointed to Romania's top court overturning the first round of the country's presidential election in November.

"When we see European courts canceling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others, we ought to ask whether we're holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard," he said.

Vance also warned Germany, saying "there is no room for firewalls", referring to Germany's mainstream political parties refusing to cooperate with the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, a party labeled as far-right in the European Union.

Germany's federal election, set for Feb 23, is expected to see the AfD finish in second place, ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democratic Party, according to a recent YouGov poll.

Scholz immediately rejected Vance's call to remove the "firewalls" against the AfD, saying the Donald Trump administration's backing of the party "is not proper, especially not among friends and allies, and we firmly reject that".

"We will decide for ourselves what happens to our democracy," Scholz said on Saturday.

Expecting same respect

Friedrich Merz, leader of Germany's Christian Democratic Union and the front-runner to become the next chancellor, also rebuffed Vance.

"We respect the presidential elections and the congressional elections in the US. And we expect the US to do the same here," Merz told the Munich meeting.

He mocked Trump's White House for banning Associated Press reporters from attending media events after the agency refused to alter its references to the Gulf of Mexico, which Trump has ordered to be renamed the Gulf of America.

Merz said the German government "would never kick out a news agency out of the press room of our chancellery".

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said Vance's speech "is not acceptable".

Vance also infuriated German leaders by meeting with the AfD's chancellor candidate Alice Weidel on Friday, while he did not meet Scholz in Munich.

Asked about Vance's speech, Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday that it was a "very good speech, actually very brilliant".

Carl Bildt, former Swedish prime minister, said Vance's speech was "significantly worse than expected "and Scholz delivered "a fairly robust rebuttal".

"If the intention of the speech was to alienate Europe, I think it could be described as successful. Otherwise — certainly not," Bildt said.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Vance was trying to pick a fight with the EU.

"Listening to that speech, they try to pick a fight with us and we don't want to pick a fight with our friends," she said at the Munich conference.

Wang Yiwei, a professor at Renmin University of China's School of International Studies, who attended the Munich conference, told China Daily that Vance's speech has confused Europeans.

"Some Europeans are disappointed with the US. Some still harbor delusions about the US, even hoping to incite tensions between China and the US to benefit the EU," Wang said, clearly referring to Kallas, who took several swipes at China when people expected her to comment on US government actions.

Rob Roos, a former EU lawmaker and former vice-president of the European Conservatives and Reformists Group, applauded Vance's speech.

"EU bureaucrats should be required to listen to this twice a day — once before work, once before bed," he wrote on X.

"A master class in democracy. A lesson in common sense."