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.
