The EU members are responding badly to Vice President Vance’s speech in Munich, in which he attempted to call them back to a more moral, freedom-oriented ideology. They are becoming more and more authoritarian.
Free Speech Is In Retreat
On Friday at the Munich Security Conference, Vance said that he fears free speech is “in retreat” across the continent.
“To many of us on the other side of the Atlantic, it looks more and more like old entrenched interests hiding behind ugly Soviet-era words like misinformation and disinformation, who simply don’t like the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express a different opinion or, God forbid, vote a different way, or even worse, win an election,” Vance said.
“Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters,” he said. “There’s no room for firewalls.”
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Germany Was Particularly Upset
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, speaking a couple of hours later, said he couldn’t let the speech go without comment.
The German Defense Minister found it “unacceptable.”
“If I understood him correctly, he is comparing conditions in parts of Europe with those in authoritarian regimes,” Pistorius said. “That is unacceptable, and it is not the Europe and not the democracy in which I live and am currently campaigning.”
But he added that “democracy doesn’t mean that the loud minority is automatically right,” and that “democracy must be able to defend itself against the extremists who want to destroy it.”
Scholz posted on social network X to “emphatically reject” Vance’s comments.
“Out of the experiences of Nazism, the democratic parties in Germany have a joint consensus — that is the firewall against extreme right-wing parties,” he wrote.
Bavarian governor Markus Söder — a prominent figure in Germany’s center-right opposition bloc, which leads pre-election polls — told reporters that “we take every opinion seriously, but we decide ourselves with whom we form a coalition,” German news agency dpa reported.
Vance also told European leaders that “if you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you.” He said no democracy could survive telling millions of voters that their concerns “are invalid or unworthy of even being considered.”
The EU is also angry with Secretary Hegseth because they were told they must pay more into NATO. They now pay only 1.6% of their GDP.
VP Vance Responded
Vice President Vance responded to their anger. “The goal wasn’t to hector European allies,” he said. “I admitted in the speech that many of these censorious impulses derive from bad American leadership, and that has now changed. See, for instance, what we’ve done with USAID.”
“I don’t think Europe is blameless. And we’re not going to change anything overnight. But reminding both our American and European friends that we have an administration biased towards open debate and expression was worth the effort,” he said.
Zelenskyy Exploits an Opportunity
President Zelenskyy is using the EU’s anger at Vice President Vance. We’re not looking for division. We’re looking for the EU to return to the sacred values of free speech, free markets, and borders. Zelensky is self-absorbed as his people are dying.
After all we have done for Europe, this is the tantrum we get from them and the likes of Zelensky. pic.twitter.com/cWjnVBiobh
— Noah Fencebutt (@Noah_Fencebutt) February 15, 2025
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