Munich Security Conference: Rubio to give speech as leaders gather

Peace efforts in Ukraine are top of the agenda at this year’s conference but at a Berlin Format meeting, attended by leaders from a dozen European countries, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was a no-show.

My colleague Johanna Urbancik has more.

Good morning and welcome to our live blog on the second day of talks between the world’s top security leaders.

Here’s a quick recap of what stood out yesterday:

• Germany’s Chancellor Merz delivered a dramatic speech which set the tone for the next three days. In it, he said the world order as it has stood for decades “no longer exists” and that a new world order of “power politics” puts even the strongest nations in danger. He dubbed the tension between the EU and the US an “inconvenient truth”, said there was a “divide” between the continents and that “freedom could no longer be taken for granted” against the ongoing threat from Moscow.
• Elsewhere, US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz and the EU’s Foreign Policy Chief Kaja Kallas sparred on spending with Waltz noting that continued payments for international organisations, such as the UN, have become hard to justify to US voters. Kallas told Waltz that “when America goes to wars, then a lot of us go with you, and we lose our people on the way. You also need us.”
• Finally, French President Emmanuel Macron praised Europe in a speech that set out a positive view of what the continent could achieve. He mentioned planning “coexistence” with Russia, a new European nuclear sharing programme and pushed back on the notion that Europe was over-regulating its social media platforms.

First up is US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is set to deliver a speech one year after Vice President J.D.Vance stunned the same conference with a blistering attack on European countries. Stay tuned —we’ll deliver the main lines as we get them.