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German Chancellor Hits Back at US as Trump Administration Upends Norms

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz speaks during the Munich Security Conference (MSC) in Munich, Germany, February 15, 2025. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz speaks during the Munich Security Conference (MSC) in Munich, Germany, February 15, 2025. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay
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German Chancellor Hits Back at US as Trump Administration Upends Norms

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz speaks during the Munich Security Conference (MSC) in Munich, Germany, February 15, 2025. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz speaks during the Munich Security Conference (MSC) in Munich, Germany, February 15, 2025. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Saturday shot back strongly in defense of his stance against the far-right and said his country won’t accept people who “intervene in our democracy,” a day after US Vice President JD Vance scolded European leaders over their approach to democracy.

The German leader spoke at the Munich Security Conference with just eight days before crucial elections in Germany, with polls showing the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party — whose co-leader met with Vance on Friday — currently in second, ahead of Scholz's own Social Democrats.

Even while lashing out at alleged US meddling in Germany's democracy, Scholz said he was “pleased” at what he called a shared commitment with the United States to the “preserving the sovereign independence of Ukraine,” and agreed with comments by US President Donald Trump that Russia's war in Ukraine must end.

But when it came to domestic politics, Scholz also alluded to Germany's Nazi past, and said the longstanding commitment to “Never Again” — a return to the extreme right — was not reconcilable with support for AfD.

“We will not accept that people who look at Germany from the outside intervene in our democracy and our elections and in the democratic opinion-forming process in the interest of this party,” The Associated Press quoted him as saying. “That’s just not done, certainly not amongst friends and allies. We resolutely reject this.”

“Where our democracy goes from here is for us to decide,” Scholz added.

A day earlier, Vance that he fears free speech is “in retreat” across the continent.

He said that many Americans saw in Europe "entrenched interests hiding behind ugly Soviet-era words like misinformation and disinformation, who simply don’t like the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express a different opinion or, God forbid, vote a different way, or even worse, win an election.”

Scholz, shooting back, said “free speech in Europe means that you are not attacking others in ways that are against legislation and laws we have in our country." He was alluding to rules in Germany that restrict hate speech.

The exchanges came as European leaders have been trying to make sense of a tough new line from Washington on issues including democracy and Ukraine's future, as the Trump administration continues to upend transatlantic conventions that have been in place since after World War II.

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Huge Power Outage Paralyzes Parts of Spain and Portugal

This photograph shows a flamenco dress factory without light and workers during a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula and the south of France, in Seville on April 28, 2025. (AFP)
This photograph shows a flamenco dress factory without light and workers during a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula and the south of France, in Seville on April 28, 2025. (AFP)
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Huge Power Outage Paralyzes Parts of Spain and Portugal

This photograph shows a flamenco dress factory without light and workers during a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula and the south of France, in Seville on April 28, 2025. (AFP)
This photograph shows a flamenco dress factory without light and workers during a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula and the south of France, in Seville on April 28, 2025. (AFP)

A huge power outage hit large parts of Spain and Portugal on Monday, paralyzing traffic, grounding flights, trapping people in elevators and leaving power operators scrambling to restore power to millions of homes and businesses.

Some hospitals halted routine work and the two countries' governments convened emergency cabinet meetings, with officials initially saying a possible cyber-attack could not be ruled out. Outages on such a scale are extremely rare in Europe, and the cause could not immediately be established.

Reuters witnesses said power had started returning to the Basque country and Barcelona areas of Spain in the early afternoon, a few hours after the outage began. It was not clear when power might be more widely restored.

Hospitals in Madrid and Cataluna in Spain suspended all routine medical work but were still attending to critical patients, using backup generators. Several Spanish oil refineries were shut down and retail businesses shut.

The Bank of Spain said electronic banking was functioning "adequately" on backup systems, though residents also reported ATM screens had gone blank.

"I'm in a data center, and everything has gone off. All the alarms popped up, and now we're with the groups, waiting to find out what happened," said Barcelona resident and engineer Jose Maria Espejo, 40.

In a video posted on X, Madrid Mayor Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida urged city residents to minimize their journeys and stay where they were, adding: "It is essential that the emergency services can circulate."

In Portugal, water supplier EPAL said water supplies could also be disrupted, and queues formed at stores by people rushing to purchase emergency supplies like gaslights, generators and batteries.

The main Portuguese electricity utility, EDP, said it had told customers it had no forecast for when the energy supply would be "normalized", Publico newspaper said. It warned it could take several hours.

Parts of France also suffered a brief outage. RTE, the French grid operator, said it had moved to supplement power to some parts of northern Spain after the outage hit.

Play at the Madrid Open tennis tournament was suspended, forcing 15th seed Grigor Dimitrov and British opponent Jacob Fearnley off the court as scoreboards went dark and overhead cameras lost power.

TRAFFIC JAMS

Spanish radio stations said part of the Madrid underground was being evacuated. There were traffic jams in Madrid city center as traffic lights stopped working, Cader Ser Radio station reported.

Hundreds of people stood outside office buildings on Madrid’s streets and there was a heavy police presence around key buildings, directing traffic as well as driving along central atriums with lights, according to a Reuters witness.

One of four tower buildings in Madrid that houses the British Embassy had been evacuated, the witness added.

Local radio reported people trapped in stalled metro cars and elevators.

Portuguese police said traffic lights were affected across the country, the metro was closed in Lisbon and Porto, and trains were not running.

Lisbon's subway transport operator Metropolitano de Lisboa said the subway was at a standstill with people still inside the trains, according to Publico newspaper.

A source at Portugal's TAP Air said Lisbon airport was running on back-up generators, while AENA, which manages 46 airports in Spain, reported flight delays around the country.

Such widespread outages are unusual in Europe. In 2003 a problem with a hydroelectric power line between Italy and Switzerland caused a major outage across the whole Italian peninsula for around 12 hours.

In 2006 an overloaded power network in Germany caused electricity cuts across parts of the country and in France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands and as far as Morocco.