THE weeklong Munich security conference came to its end on Sunday with a promising outcome for EU candidate nations such as Albania and Montenegro.
EU enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos said Albania and Montenegro are the “front-runners” among the current candidates for EU accession and that their continuing negotiations could be concluded by the end of 2026 or 2027; both nations have been candidates since 2006 and 2014.
Kos said she could understand the disappointment over the sometimes lengthy negotiations. “We are already accelerating the process, especially with Ukraine.
We are working in the European Union two to three times faster, but we should distinguish between the technical part of the process and the political part,” she emphasised.
During the inauguration day of the 2025 Munich Security Conference, US Vice President J.D. Vance said that the “US was no longer a guarantor of peace and security for the EU and that they needed to increase the defence spending to match up to the US expectations.”
As soon as remarks came from Vance, it quickly became a cause of concern for EU members of NATO, raising eyebrows over the US’s potential shift as the bloc heavily relies on the US for its collective security.
In his speech, Vance sharply criticised European allies, accusing them of restricting freedom of expression and endangering democracy.
Among other things, he condemned the exclusion of the far-right Alliance for Germany (AfD) and the populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) from the security conference and generally opposed the exclusion of parties. Representatives of the German government rejected this.
US historian Timothy Snyder said Vance’s speech was one: “There is a European habit of waiting to see what the Americans will do, or what the Russians will do. Europe urgently needs to overcome this.”
“Europeans will paralyse themselves if they continue to assume that they cannot achieve anything as long as it is unclear what America and Russia are doing,” he said.
On the Ukraine peace deal, he said, “Trump and Putin are like two entwined snakes. It’s a fascinating spectacle. You watch them, mesmerised, and you’re not quite sure: Are they fighting or caressing each other?”
Additionally, China and the Philippines also clashed over the disputed South China Sea; the Philippines accused China of restricting access to their territory.
China’s former Foreign Minister Wang Yi, during the conference, said, “His country will resolutely respond to any aggression in South China and accused the Philippines of occupying Chinese territory.”
