Vance Has ‘Got a Point’

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Q&A Vance Has ‘Got a Point’ Austrian Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg on the U.S. vice president’s now-infamous Munich speech—among other things. By Rishi Iyengar , a reporter at Foreign Policy , and Cameron Abadi , a deputy editor at Foreign Policy . Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg addresses the media. Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg addresses the media during a press conference in Berlin on Feb. 16, 2022. Hannibal Hanschke/Getty Images My FP: Follow topics and authors to get straight to what you like. Exclusively for FP subscribers. Subscribe Now | Log In Geopolitics NATO United States Russia Europe Ukraine Cameron Abadi Rishi Iyengar February 19, 2025, 12:40 PM Comment icon View Comments ( 1 ) The dust is still settling from U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference last weekend, in which he rebuked European countries for their “retreat” from democratic values, citing what he characterized as excessive censorship, out-of-control migration, and the sidelining of increasingly popular far-right political parties. Trump’s Second Term Ongoing reports and analysis While most European leaders and officials watching reacted with shock and consternation , not all of them did. The first person Foreign Policy sat down with after the speech was Austria’s acting chancellor and foreign minister, Alexander Schallenberg, who conceded that Vance had a “point” on several issues he raised. The dust is still settling from U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference last weekend, in which he rebuked European countries for their “retreat” from democratic values, citing what he characterized as excessive censorship, out-of-control migration, and the sidelining of increasingly popular far-right political parties. Trending Articles Trump Trades Barbs With Zelensky The two leaders’ war of words has triggered a breakdown in U.S.-Ukraine relations. Powered By Advertisement Trump Trades Barbs With Zelensky X Trump’s Second Term Ongoing reports and analysis While most European leaders and officials watching reacted with shock and consternation , not all of them did. The first person Foreign Policy sat down with after the speech was Austria’s acting chancellor and foreign minister, Alexander Schallenberg, who conceded that Vance had a “point” on several issues he raised. Schallenberg has a closer vantage point than most into some of Vance’s criticisms—he took over as Austria’s leader in late January after his conservative Austrian People’s Party failed to form a coalition government with parties on the left and subsequently with the far-right Freedom Party of Austria, which won the most seats in parliamentary elections last September. In a wide-ranging interview with FP’s Rishi Iyengar and Cameron Abadi that took place hours after Vance’s speech and lasted nearly double the time we were initially allotted, Schallenberg talked us through his reaction to the speech, his party’s negotiations with the far right, and broader issues such as support for Ukraine, tariff wars, defense spending, and European relations with China. The conversation below has been edited for length and clarity. Foreign Policy: What did you make of Vance’s speech? Alexander Schallenberg: I was sitting in one of the more advanced rows, and I had the impression that for some people, it was, it seems, a little bit surprising in tonality but it wasn’t surprising in content. From my perspective, I believe he’s got a point on some issues. For instance, on migration, he’s got a point. As foreign minister and chancellor of Austria, I believe the term of “firewalls” in a democracy is an extremely tricky term. To signal to a certain part of your electorate—and in Austria for the Freedom Party it would be, for instance, nearly 29 percent—that actually your votes don’t count because you’re not part of the spectrum of respected parties is very dangerous from a democratic point of view. And it strengthens this anti-system rhetoric, which these parties sometimes have, to a certain degree. I’m a democrat through and through, and we have to be very watchful what kinds of signals we’re sending out. On these points, I believe that his messages were correct but probably the tonality was surprising for some. Migration and inflation are the two topics that have been dominating our election campaign as they did in France, the Netherlands—I would say in the United States as well. These are the topics: jobs and migration. FP: You said those are the specific areas you agree with him on, implying that there are other areas in the speech you did not agree with. Read More U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance speaks during the 61st Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany. The Speech That Stunned Europe Read U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance’s remarks at the Munich Security Conference. Transcript | Christina Lu German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visits weapons maker Rheinmetall in Unterluess, Germany on Feb. 12, 2024. How Europe Can Defend Itself Here are 10 steps European leaders can take now to bolster the continent’s defenses without U.S. help. Argument | Garvan Walshe Europe-EU-NATO-Donald-Trump-US-election-foreign-policy-illustration-doug-chayka-3-2 Europe Alone Nine thinkers on the continent’s future without America’s embrace. Analysis | Mark Leonard , Constanze Stelzenmüller , Nathalie Tocci , Carl Bildt , Robin Niblett , Radoslaw Sikorski , Guntram Wolff , Bilahari Kausikan , Ivan Krastev , Stefan Theil AS: I didn’t have the time to look at everything and all the examples he gave. I’m a 100 percent trans-Atlantic[ist], the most pro-trans-Atlantic foreign minister of Austria, I believe, over the last couple of decades. I don’t have the right to vote in the United States. I had [former U.S. Secretary of State] Mike Pompeo in Vienna, and I visited him in Washington. I had [former U.S. Secretary of State] Antony Blinken in Vienna, and I visited him in Washington. I will try to find a stable, trustworthy, close relationship with any administration in the United States because it is—in the free world—the power No. 1. And we are, whether we like it or not, in a systemic struggle. There are authoritarian systems out there, which are every day in every country trying to undermine our system—freedom of speech, freedom of media, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, all of that, and I believe it’s worthwhile fighting for it. And there, the United States is our prime ally. Sign up for Editors’ Picks A curated selection of FP’s must-read stories. Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use and to receive email correspondence from us. You may opt out at any time. Enter your email Sign Up ✓ Signed Up You’re on the list! More ways to stay updated on global news: FP Live Enter your email Sign Up ✓ Signed Up World Brief Enter your email Sign Up ✓ Signed Up China Brief Enter your email Sign Up ✓ Signed Up South Asia Brief Enter your email Sign Up ✓ Signed Up Situation Report Enter your email Sign Up ✓ Signed Up View All Newsletters FP: Austria has a recent history of the kinds of coalitions that Vance was suggesting, with the center-right cooperating with the far right. Do you think Austria has something to teach other European countries? AS: That’s one thing you will never hear from Austria. That is the difference between us and other countries in Europe and elsewhere—we don’t go around trying to teach things to others as a matter of principle. History has taught us. [laughs] But I would say as a democratic leader, if when a party wins, when you are astonished at how come they are successful, how come they get across the messages that you might think are even fake or whatever it is, then the wrong answer is to exclude them from the political spectrum. You have to ask yourself: “Why am I failing? Why do we established parties not reach people anymore in the way we should? What kinds of communication means do we have to use, what kind of messaging, what kind of topics do we have to raise?” And it’s a phenomenon you see everywhere. In an Austrian election two years ago, we had a party calling itself the Communist Party of Austria winning 20 percent [of the votes] in Salzburg, which is the most bourgeois city you can find in Austria. I believe that the value of democracy is above everything. And sometimes it is stressful; it’s disruptive. We are feeling it now in Austria, but that’s inherent to democracy. Democracy is change. FP: Yet the coalition talks in Austria between your parties collapsed. AS: I can tell you something about it. That’s why I’m sitting here. [laughs] FP: Did your party not try hard enough? AS: At the beginning, we negotiated with the Social Democrats and the Liberals. A three-party coalition was the option. It failed because [of] issues of taxation, budget, and others. First, the Liberals and then we pulled out of the negotiations. We wanted to create a government that is stable, that has a majority in the Parliament. So we started negotiating with the Freedom Party, but it turned out that our original policy, saying we don’t do that, was actually right. We ruled it out, and my predecessor [as chancellor] stepped down because of that, and I personally declared as well that I won’t be part of any government with the Freedom Party. But I believe it was democratically right to say we don’t exclude them, we try to find out whether we can still form a government. It didn’t work out because they wanted to have access to the secret service and other institutions, which was out of the question for us, so it failed again. And now we are talking again with the other parties. If not, we have to go to vote again. The important point for me is whether everything is in the framework of our constitution. We don’t have majority voting, so you always have to find coalitions, as in Germany. And the established parties would have a very slim majority, by one vote, which is not sufficient. So we’re looking to a three-party coalition. The issue is people expect us to form a government. We have to get a budget together. We are in an economically challenging situation. We have to give signals to industries. So there is a demand for [a] functioning government, and a functioning government needs the majority in the Parliament to get laws passed. If we don’t achieve any result now, then we will have a vote again. This is all within the framework of the [constitution]. FP: On the topic of the far right, it sounded as if you had certain red lines, and I’m curious what those red lines are. AS: Any political party has values and positions. The Christian Democrats in Austria, we are the international, the economy party. We are the European party, as we call ourselves. It was an Austrian leader of our party who brought Austria into the European Union. There are certain lines that are nonnegotiable: that we are engaged in Europe, we are an integrated partner of the European Union, that we want to be a sovereign state—meaning noninterference by third countries like Russia—rule of law, separation of powers, freedom of media, freedom of arts and culture. All these things were very clearly put from us as lines where we would simply not move. And the same goes for multilateralism, for not saying that every international treaty has to be renegotiated or canceled. Because we as a country are dependent on rule of law, we’re dependent on the system where contracts and treaties are respected because we need [a] rules-based international order, which makes sure that whether you’re big or small, whether you have nuclear weapons or not, you follow the rules. If we start to step out of [this], this is what protects us, and these were our red lines. FP: Turning to the topic of Ukraine, which did not come up in Vance’s speech—what if the United States doesn’t include its allies in discussions to bring the Russia-Ukraine war to a conclusion? AS: This is from my perspective, and it might be a very blunt response—this is not a beauty contest. But there is one bottom line that for me is nonnegotiable: no negotiations about Ukraine without Ukraine. They are the ones who have been attacked. They are the ones who extremely bravely and impressively are fighting for their sovereignty and independence. They have to have the last word—it’s them. We are not in the 19th century where we can decide about the fate of other people. I sometimes don’t like this discourse we have in Europe where it’s about how we are not sitting [at] the table. It’s about Ukraine. It’s about the Russian aggression. We are sitting in our own echo chambers. We need China on board. We need Russia if we talk about any peace conference. We need India on board. If we talk about a sustainable, lasting security architecture that gives the people of Ukraine the security that this is not only a breathing space for Russia to attack again in a couple of years, [then] we need to bring the international community on board. We need security assurances for the people of Ukraine, but it cannot be Europe alone. It cannot be the United States alone. It should be the community. FP: Did Vance’s speech cast any doubt on the reliability of the United States as an ally? AS: Sometimes, we Europeans are champions in self-righteousness. We should engage with our partners, and I always say that for too long, we have been standing back-to-back instead of shoulder-to-shoulder with the Americans. Interestingly, my experience is actually, we know very little about each other. We believe we do, but what kind of messages from Europe actually reach the broader public in the United States and the other way around? We took each other for granted, and I believe now is a moment where we have to listen. I see the Western free world as a family, from Australia [and] New Zealand to the United States, Canada, [and the] European Union. We need each other, and I believe the model of life we stand for has to be defended now. We have to make our American friends understand that we could be for them a point of strength. They cannot do everything alone on this planet. They cannot face the challenges they see in the Indo-Pacific, for instance, all by themselves. And Europe can help. But we have to engage instead of sulking in the corner. FP: Does that engagement come in the form of defense spending? How prepared is Europe to take that on and deal with other issues such as dependence on Russian gas? AS: There’s a strong and a full awareness in Europe that we have to do that, and it will happen. Austria is neutral—we’re not [a] member of NATO. We decided after [the Russian invasion of Ukraine in] February 2022 that we will increase our expenditure and we will go to 1.5 percent [of GDP]. This is not NATO level, but for us, it’s an enormous change. Suddenly, we have a pandemic and a war, and it was a geopolitical ice bucket thrown in our face. And we have changed course, and I believe there’s a huge awareness in Europe that we have to step up to this challenge. This is my message to Washington: Don’t count us off. Let’s talk—we will deliver. We will deliver because we’re in the same fight at the end of the day. Our American friends have an advantage. Normally, they have an ocean between themselves and the crisis areas. For us, it’s [our] neighborhood—whether it’s northern Africa, Libya, whether it’s the Middle East. If you look from the Viennese perspective, Ukraine is 500 kilometers [about 310 miles] to the east, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Western Balkans, is 500 kilometers to the south. Both of them are our neighborhood, and we have to secure them both. Are we prepared? I would say not sufficiently by far. As far as energy, for instance, take Austria. We had an 80 [percent] dependence on Russian gas; now we go to zero, so it is possible. It’s painful. It costs. But it is possible, and I’m very confident that we’ll continue doing so. I’m deeply convinced these systems are 10 times stronger, more resilient than any other system on this planet. We have proved it during the pandemic. We have proved it during the energy crisis in Europe after the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. So let’s have a little bit more confidence. We will get there, but we democracies have to bring the people with us. FP: I also wanted to ask about the other elephant in the room, which is China. During the Biden administration, there was a lot of conversation around trying to get Europe and the United States on the same page about the threat of China. Do you think that pressure is now nonexistent under the Trump administration? AS: Interesting question. I believe that sometimes we have a tendency to disregard the continuity you have in foreign policy in the United States. If I remember correctly, it was President Barack Obama who was the first one to tell us Europeans: “Guys, my focus is the Indo-Pacific. There’s my challenge.” And this has actually not changed after Trump 1, Biden, Trump 2. It was the same kind of approach. I remember we had meetings in Vienna between [former U.S. National Security Advisor] Jake Sullivan and [Chinese Foreign Minister] Wang Yi. We Europeans always say that China is a rival, a competitor, and can be a partner on certain issues if you talk about nonproliferation, if we talk about certain elements of climate change. We need China on board, and you can talk with them. But on other parts, they are extremely challenging for us. My approach is always that we need to derisk, and the most important term in every sense is “level playing field.” You want the same rules applied in China for us as they have here. Same liberty, same possibilities. And the second part is China is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. That brings with it a certain responsibility for global stability and security. And I would wish to see China live up to that responsibility more often. FP: Speaking of a level playing field, Trump now talks about reciprocal tariffs on the European Union. How do you think Europe should respond in this situation? AS: The thing I would plead for is to see the whole economic exchange in perspective. Not only trading goods, but trading services, the whole thing. I believe $4 billion—you probably know the numbers better than I—[is] crossing the North Atlantic every day. We are mutually the most important trading partners and the most trusted. A trade war, I can tell you one thing: The only guy laughing his head off is [Chinese President] Xi Jinping. If we weaken ourselves, [if] the free world is starting to do a tit-for-tat, we won’t help each other, probably our prosperity will suffer, and other parties would smile because we would do 50 percent of the work in weakening ourselves. I very strongly say if there’s a kind of aggressive move towards that, we will probably [be] responding in kind—but only with the aim to end up at the negotiating table and to find an agreement quickly. There’s no necessity, with the way world state affairs are, to start a war of tariffs or a trade war between us and any partner in the free world. FP: But finding an agreement may require some aggressive response in return. AS: In German, we have the phrase: “The way you shout into the woods, the way the echo is.” [laughs] I would plead for keeping it calm, not overreacting; engagement is the most important thing. Don’t make life easier for those who are actually trying to undermine the whole system we have created together after World War II. That should be the strategic red line we should always keep in mind. FP: How big a concern is there in Europe that with Russia, as well as China, Trump’s dealmaking instincts could take over and he might give away too much leverage in the process? AS: I would plead that we Europeans keep our strategic calm. I know the media loves to see one scenario or the other scenario: We are doomed, or we are not. [But] things are never that black and white. My world is not black and white. Let’s keep our calm. Let’s keep our nerves. Let’s know where our friends are. At the end of the day, again, we are probably the best ally and friend and culturally, emotionally, the closest to the United States and mutually the other way around. So I would suggest we all don’t play the social media game but see where our real interests are. How do you say … Es wird nie so heiß gegessen wie gekocht , which translates to: “It’s never eaten as hot as it’s cooked.” We are always thinking very instantly about a situation. There’s emotion. Let’s take emotionality out of it. And that’s probably the biggest problem we have in foreign policy since the invention of social media: There’s too much emotionality and not enough rationality. This post is part of FP’s ongoing coverage of the Trump administration . Follow along here . My FP: Follow topics and authors to get straight to what you like. Exclusively for FP subscribers. Subscribe Now | Log In Geopolitics NATO United States Russia Europe Ukraine Cameron Abadi Rishi Iyengar Rishi Iyengar is a reporter at Foreign Policy . X: @Iyengarish Cameron Abadi is a deputy editor at Foreign Policy . X: @CameronAbadi Read More On Austria | Donald Trump | Europe | Geopolitics | NATO | Russia | Ukraine | United States | War Join the Conversation Commenting on this and other recent articles is just one benefit of a Foreign Policy subscription. Already a subscriber? Log In . Subscribe Subscribe View 1 Comments Join the Conversation Join the conversation on this and other recent Foreign Policy articles when you subscribe now. Subscribe Subscribe Not your account? Log out View 1 Comments Join the Conversation Please follow our comment guidelines , stay on topic, and be civil, courteous, and respectful of others’ beliefs. You are commenting as . Change your username | Log out Change your username: Username I agree to abide by FP’s comment guidelines . 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