By Nandita Bose and Doina Chiacu
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday used his speech at the Munich Security Conference to criticize Europe for what he said was censorship of free speech and said the continent faces a “threat from within,” without offering any specifics on ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
At several points in his speech, Vance minimized the risk of political interference by Russia, taking a similar stance to U.S. President Donald Trump, who has railed against claims by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia had interfered on his behalf in the 2016 election.
“For years, we’ve been told that everything we fund and support is in the name of our shared democratic values, everything from our Ukraine policy to digital censorship, is billed as a defense of democracy,” Vance told the crowd.
“But when we see European courts canceling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others, we ought to ask whether we’re holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard,” he said.
The future of Ukraine was at the top of the agenda in Munich after a phone call between Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin this week where they pledged to work together to end the conflict but Vance did not bring it up.
Vance instead accused Brussels for shutting down social media over hateful content, attacked Germany for what he described as raids against its own citizens for posting anti-feminist comments, criticized Sweden for convicting a Christian activist and railed against the United Kingdom for backsliding on religious rights.
“Across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat,” Vance said, while also criticizing former U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration in the United States for censorship of social media companies.
(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington, editing by Deepa Babington)
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