A RECORD TALLY OF LEADERS
Merz will open the conference on Friday afternoon with a speech expected to seek to shore up transatlantic ties while also emphasising the need to strengthen the European Union, a German government official said earlier this week.
Around 70 heads of state and government and more than 140 ministers, including Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar are expected under tight security in Munich.
Christine Lagarde is due to be the first European Central Bank president to address the event, underlining how efforts to make Europe’s economy more resilient are seen as part of the wider political stakes.
A large delegation from the US Congress had also been expected to accompany Rubio but many pulled out to stay in Washington for a closely watched House vote on funding the Department of Homeland Security.
Russia is not sending a delegation and the forum withdrew invitations to Iranian officials after the Tehran government’s countrywide crackdown on protests last month, in which thousands of people have been reported killed. Instead, the son of the last Shah of Iran is expected to give a speech, while a large Iranian opposition rally is seen taking place in town.
After bringing NATO to the brink of implosion over his threats to annexe Greenland, Trump appears to have backed off for the moment, after heavy pressure from many of his own supporters, said Claudia Major, senior vice president at the German Marshall Fund overseeing its work on transatlantic security.
She noted, however, that the underlying shift in transatlantic relations had not changed, pointing out that Rubio’s next stops in Europe were Hungary and Slovakia, both run by nationalist leaders who often clash with the EU on key issues such as Ukraine.
But she said the meeting could nonetheless offer European allies an opportunity to press for continued support from Washington for Ukraine, in particular on security guarantees.
“If there were progress on questions like these, then there would also be progress on the overarching issue: are we moving closer to a ceasefire that truly ends the war and does not plant the seeds for the next one?”
