Vance Tells Europeans to Stop Shunning Parties Deemed Extreme [View all]

Source: New York Times

Vance Tells Europeans to Stop Shunning Parties Deemed Extreme
His comments, a week before Germany’s elections, seemed to specifically target efforts to sideline the hard-right Alternative for Germany.

By Jim Tankersley, Steven Erlanger and David E. Sanger
Reporting from Munich

Feb. 14, 2025
Updated 4:04 p.m. ET

Vice President JD Vance told European leaders on Friday that their biggest security threat was not military aggression from Russia or China, or election meddling from Moscow. Rather, he said, it was what he called “the enemy within” — their own suppression of abortion protests and other forms of free speech and the sidelining of parties considered extremist.

The address stunned and silenced hundreds of attendees at the Munich Security Conference, a forum where top-level politicians, diplomats and analysts had gathered expecting to hear the Trump administration’s plans for ending the war in Ukraine and Europe’s defense against a rising Russian threat in the future.

Instead, the vice president offered what may be a preview of a new kind of trans-Atlantic relationship under Mr. Trump — one not built on postwar bonds of stability between allied governments, but rather on ties with once-fringe political parties that share a common approach to migration, identity and internet speech.

Mr. Vance singled out his German hosts, who will elect a new chancellor next weekend, and told them to drop their objections to working with a party that has often reveled in banned Nazi slogans and has been shunned from government as a result.

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Emma Bubola contributed reporting from Rome.

Jim Tankersley is the Berlin bureau chief for The Times, leading coverage of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. More about Jim Tankersley
https://www.nytimes.com/by/jim-tankersley

Steven Erlanger is the chief diplomatic correspondent in Europe and is based in Berlin. He has reported from over 120 countries, including Thailand, France, Israel, Germany and the former Soviet Union. More about Steven Erlanger
https://www.nytimes.com/by/steven-erlanger

David E. Sanger covers the Trump administration and a range of national security issues. He has been a Times journalist for more than four decades and has written four books on foreign policy and national security challenges. More about David E. Sanger
https://www.nytimes.com/by/david-e-sanger

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/14/world/europe/vance-europe-immigration-ukraine.html