What image will Europe project at the Munich conference?
By Victor Ângelo
My chronicle of January 30th underscored the importance of this year’s Munich conference, given the new reality of international security twelve months into the Trump Administration. The main message of my text was clear enough: international law must say no to brute force!
Now, with the conference running until Sunday, I believe it is important to reflect on security from a European perspective. In Munich, Europe must know how to demonstrate that it is truly willing to resolve and overcome its geopolitical fragility with concrete actions.
This first year of Donald Trump’s presidency has confirmed what the illegal, unjustified, and large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 had already revealed: Europe is economically powerful and culturally and normatively influential, but strategically weak. In matters of security, it has depended fundamentally on the US and its vision of the world. With Trump’s arrival to power, Europe’s vulnerability and dependence on Washington regarding defence have become more evident.
In this context, the presence of Marco Rubio in Munich, heading a vast and influential American delegation, takes on a particular significance. At the 2025 conference, American Vice-President JD Vance made a name for himself by stating, among other shocking remarks, that the American commitment to European security was no longer unconditional. That having been said, Washington’s position may no longer need to be quite so disruptive now. Rubio represents a less coarse America, one that does not antagonise Europe in that manner. He merely considers it a fragmented, disoriented geopolitical actor with little weight—practically insignificant.
His speech will likely stick close to the following points: the responsibility for Europe's security is, above all, a European incumbency; European governments must invest more in defence, as committed at the NATO summit in June 2025; the Americans want more strategic clarity from the European side, which, in the US's understanding, would mean unhesitating alignment with the policies defined by Washington and effective engagement in Trump's initiative within the ineffable Peace Council. Rubio will not forget to mention that the Atlantic Alliance will continue to exist as long as its leadership is, in essence, dictated by US interests. He will also explain the alleged Russian-inspired peace plan that the American president wants to impose on Ukraine, including the unrealistic project of holding presidential elections in a country suffering a war of aggression day and night, an electoral process under the sound of Russian drums and missiles.
In truth, I do not believe Rubio will bring anything new from the West. It is the interventions of European leaders that will need to be listened to attentively.
There, I see increasingly clear and significant disagreements, particularly between France and Germany—divergences reflected in the contrasting visions of Emmanuel Macron and Ursula von der Leyen.
For years, Macron has insisted on the need for a strategically autonomous Europe, capable of organising its own security while considering probable threats. This position was again reflected in the interview he gave this week to Le Monde and other major European newspapers. He does not diminish NATO, but he insists on a balance between the strategic interests of both sides of the Atlantic. For Macron, continued dependence on Washington is a disguised, yet real, form of subordination. Contrary to what others think, I believe Macron’s stance is not aimed at marking territory to eventually replace António Costa as President of the European Council in June 2027. In that area, Macron seems to have little chance.
Von der Leyen follows a more institutional approach, deeply shaped by German strategic choices. Her leadership, closer to Friedrich Merz, has been effective in achieving compromises in the field of defence industries and support for Ukraine. However, the President of the European Commission remains convinced of the need for our complementarity with the United States. For von der Leyen, European autonomy appears more as a reinforcement of the European pillar of NATO than as a parallel political project with hints of independence. It is a decision inspired by the German tradition of recent decades.
Macron thinks of Charles de Gaulle and reflects a Europe that has stopped believing in the American backstop. He bets on unity between the main European powers. Von der Leyen, meanwhile, fears the fractures that might emerge in crisis situations. She considers it indispensable to have an anchor point external to European rivalries. In reality, this may signify an acknowledgement of the fragility of the European project.
I fear that the Munich conference will display these discrepancies and convey an image of weakness to the delegation led by Rubio—and the conviction that the person truly in charge of European security is, after all, in the White House. This would be tragic for our common European project. Faced with Rubio, and through him, Donald Trump, Europe cannot limit itself to promising more spending. It must demonstrate unity, decision-making capacity, and moral strength in a new-old world, now dominated by powers that have once again ceased to value political ethics and international law.
