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Home » TRANSCRIPT: “It Is An Existential Moment”: The Old Continent’s New Geopolitical Role at MSC 2025

TRANSCRIPT: “It Is An Existential Moment”: The Old Continent’s New Geopolitical Role at MSC 2025

Read the full transcript of “It Is An Existential Moment”: The Old Continent’s New Geopolitical Role at Munich Security Conference 2025. It’s a panel discussion about the War in Ukraine and Europe’s Role with the Foreign Affairs Ministers of Germany, Poland, France and the UK.

Listen to the audio version here:

TRANSCRIPT:

Introduction

INTERVIEWER: Good afternoon everyone. It’s great to see so many people joining me here today and I am delighted to introduce the next discussion where we’re going to be assessing, really, Europe’s place in the world. In order to do that, I’m delighted to welcome on stage the German Minister for Foreign Affairs, Annalena Baerbock. The UK’s Foreign Secretary, David Lammy as well. Radoslaw Sikorski, the Minister for Foreign Affairs from Poland. And last but not least, Jean-Noël Barrot, the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs from France.

Alright, I would like to start today’s conversation with one comment and you will understand in just a second why I am bringing this up. Right now, it’s not clear whether Europe will even have a seat at the table when the war against our country ends. Will President Trump listen to Europe or will he negotiate with Russia and China without Europe? Ladies and gentlemen, these words were of President Zelensky just a couple of weeks ago at the World Economic Forum. And here we are today, a 90-minute phone call later and after a fiery speech by the Vice President of the United States on this stage.

So I would like to start the conversation, perhaps getting your thoughts, Minister Baerbock, on how are you feeling about this? So many moving pieces. Do you think that Europe as a continent is facing an existential crisis?

Europe’s Response to the Crisis

ANNALENA BAERBOCK: Good afternoon, everybody. Pleasure being here and thank you all for coming to Munich. Well, this is an existential moment and it’s a moment where Europe has to stand up. And we have showed three years ago where everybody underestimated Europe as well, especially the Russian President, thinking that he would just invade Ukraine and everybody would keep in silence, that we didn’t repeat the mistake from 2014 before. But we said, now is our answer, that Europe has to be strong and bold and that we, besides all the differences we have, we stand united.

And now, three years later, we are at exactly the same moment again. Our answer to others, my nation first, is Europe united. And this is what we show here on the panel, this is what we have shown in the last couple of days, that we made clear there will not be any peace in Europe if it’s not a European peace. And I’m a bit of a younger generation and my responsibility as a politician is that it’s not a shared peace, but it’s a peace that lasts also for our children, that the war of aggression will never come back to Europe and this is what we are fighting for, this is what we are standing for and this is why we formed a security package which has been unseen in the past. Commissioner von der Leyen mentioned that yesterday, financially, also continuing with defence capabilities and we will stay with Ukraine as long as it needs because we stand for European peace forever.

INTERVIEWER: Thank you. I just would like to clarify, when you think about how Europe at this stage is not around the table in terms of peace negotiations for Ukraine, what is your strategy? How can you put the continent at the table and make the United States President listen to what you want from these peace negotiations?

ANNALENA BAERBOCK: Well, we are here and we will not leave our own continent. And I can only repeat, there won’t be any lasting peace if it’s not a European agreed peace. And yes, we have heard here a speech on this stage yesterday. And I want to be crystal clear, this is the moment of truth. Everybody in the world has to decide whether you stand on the side of the free world or you stand on the side of those who fight against the free world.

And we are standing here on the side of the free world. And speaking for my own country, we are so lucky, my generation, that our allies, the US, but also our Polish partners, France and UK, they have brought democracy to my country. And we call it Wehrhafte Demokratie, resilient democracy. Meaning, if you are resilient, you fight against the enemies of your democracy. And our biggest enemy, and this is where I might disagree with the speech from yesterday, our biggest enemy at the moment is Putin’s Russia, because he has declared war on our European peace and on our European democracy.

And this is why my oath, I swore, as a politician in a democracy of Europe, is to defend this democracy against the enemies from outside. But also to defend it against the enemies from inside. This is also called Wehrhafte Demokratie, resilient democracy. If radical extreme right or Islamistic structures are calling on a fight against our democracy, Europe is strong enough to defend it from inside. And this is again the moment where you have to pick a side for the free and liberal world, the world of democracy, and this is what Europe is all about.

The Threat to Europe

INTERVIEWER: Minister Sikorski, I’ll come to you then, because obviously the words from the Vice President was very much that the threat is from within. But the Minister is highlighting that it’s actually an external pressure. How do you assess this? Where is actually the threat?

RADOSLAW SIKORSKI: In Poland we have no doubt that the threat to Europe, to liberal democracy, to decency, comes from Putin’s Russia. Numerous war crimes have been committed.