German chancellor Friedrich Merz among key figures to speak as three-day security gathering opens
Good morning from Munich, where dozens of global leaders are set to meet at the Bayerischer Hof Hotel to discuss the latest in EU-US ties – and other burning global issues, such as Ukraine, Gaza, Iran – amid rapidly changing security and defence situation.
Flying in to Munich, US secretary of state Marco Rubio issued a rather stark warning, saying:
“The world is changing very fast, right in front of us: the old world is gone, frankly, the world I grew up in, and we live in a new era in geopolitics, and it’s going to require all of us to sort of re-examine what that looks like and what our role is going to be.”
Earlier this week, the organisers’ assessment of the situation was even more blunt as they argued the post-war world order was “under destruction,” as we enter “a period of wrecking ball politics” where “sweeping destruction – rather than careful reforms and policy corrections – is the order of the day”.
