Rubio's speech did not reassure all European leaders. “Will it change our strategy? Of course not! What we heard today we have heard in the past”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio's speech at the Munich Security Conference was met with prolonged applause, with some of the audience standing. But Rubio's speech, in a completely different tone from the one given last year by American Vice President JD Vance, did not completely remove the suspicions that European leaders have towards the United States, the international press notes.

Marco Rubio made sure to reiterate several times the solid partnership between Europe and the United States, managing to draw applause from the audience on several occasions.

• “The US wants Europe to be strong because we know that the fate of Europe will never be irrelevant to our national security.”
• “The United States and Europe must be together. We are part of one civilization, Western civilization.”
• “Our homeland may be in the Western Hemisphere, but we will always be children of Europe.”

A tone meant to soothe

CNN writes that while Rubio's tone was one intended to reassure, in contrast to the shock caused by JD Vance in 2025, he repeated previous criticisms of the US administration regarding Europeans taking responsibility for their own defense and distancing themselves from the perspective of values.

“Rubio's tone was in stark contrast to Vance's a year ago, but the message for Europe was the same: reform or you're on your own!” said the article by Zachary Cohen.

The host of the Munich conference, Germany's Wolfgang Ischinger, said after Rubio's speech that he heard “a sigh of relief” in the room. But French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said: “Will this change our strategy? Of course not! What we heard today we have heard in the past.” “We will produce a strong and independent Europe, whatever interventions we hear at the Munich Conference,” said Barrot, quoted by AFP.

And AFP writes that “despite a speech less offensive than that of JD Vance, Mr. Rubio revisited themes dear to the American president” such as “civilizational extinction” linked, in his opinion, to mass immigration and deindustrialization that threatens Europe as well as the United States.

Berlin remains distrustful of the US

Reuters cites German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius' speech as an indication of the “mixed reactions” to Rubio's speech. Pistorius said the transatlantic alliance depends on the predictability and confidence the United States inspires.

“To call into question the territorial integrity and sovereignty of a NATO member state, to exclude European allies from negotiations that are crucial to the security of the continent, all this hurts our alliance and strengthens our adversaries,” Pistorius said.

Even the former foreign minister of Lithuania was not very impressed by Rubio's speech. “I'm not sure that Europeans see the announced civilizational decline, partly caused by migration and deindustrialization, as a major unifying interest. For most Europeans, the main common interest is security,” Gabrielius Landsbergis wrote on X.

Von der Leyen invokes the EU's defense clause

On the other hand, the president of the European Commission testified that the speech of the American Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in which he called for a revitalization of the transatlantic alliance, convinced her. “I was very calmed by the secretary of state's speech,” von der Leyen told moderator Christiane Amanpour, calling Rubio a “good friend” and “strong ally”, according to News.ro.

However, von der Leyen evoked, in the speech given at the conference, the mutual defense clause of the EU states. “Mutual defense is not an optional task for the European Union. It is an obligation laid down in our own treaty – Article 42(7),” said von der Leyen in his speech at the MSC. “It is our collective commitment to support each other in case of aggression or, simply put: one for all and all for one. And this is the meaning of Europe”, pointed out the head of the European executive.

Article 42.7 was proposed as a plan B for European security in a world where the US is reducing its support for NATO. And German Chancellor Friedrich Merz had asked for discussions about this article in his speech in Munich on Friday.