The US vice president has said neither China nor Russia are the most serious challenge to the continent, but its retreat from core values
Europe faces its greatest threat from within rather than from foreign powers, US Vice President J.D. Vance has said, expressing concern about what he called the continent’s abandonment of its core values.
Vance told the Munich Security Conference on Friday that while Washington is preoccupied with the question of achieving a reasonable settlement between Russia and Ukraine, Europe has bigger problems.
”The threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor,” he said, adding “what I worry about is the threat from within.”
Vance mentioned a former senior European Union official, who went on TV to cheer the Romanian constitutional court’s decision to annul the first round of voting in the country’s December 2024 presidential election over supposed foreign interference. Vance suggested that the ruling was politically motivated, and made because things did not “go to plan” in the EU nation.
The vice president also expressed confidence that “we can come to a reasonable settlement between Russia and Ukraine.” He stressed that “it’s important in the coming years for Europe to step up in a big way to provide for its own defense.”
