Munich Chairman Gets Emotional About Loss of ‘Common Values’ in US-EU Alliance

Christoph Heusgen, a veteran German diplomat and chairman of the 2025 Munich Security Conference (MSC), gave an emotional farewell to European and international allies in his final speech on Sunday as partners scramble to provide a collective response to the critiques of NATO and EU security networks issued at the summit by American officials. 

The three-day meeting between international allies was shaken up by the speeches of US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance, who gave contradictory messages about Ukraine’s future ascension into the NATO alliance and seemed to cozy up to Germany’s far-right political party just days before Germany’s national election on Sunday.

“After the speech of Vice President Vance on Friday, we have to fear that our common value base is not that common anymore,” Heusgen said on the last day of the MSC.

He thanked European partners for their steadfast dedication to preserving democracy and warned that a new era of global geopolitics is upon us.

“I am very grateful to all those European politicians that spoke out and reaffirmed the values and principles that they are defending. No one did this better than President Zelensky,” he said.

Heusgen had to pause before attempting his conclusion – which he ultimately cut off seemingly holding back tears.

“Let me conclude, and this becomes difficult…” he said, before wiping his eyes and walking off stage to the crowd’s applause.

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Although the audience at MSC seemed receptive to Heusgen’s message, others online – including White House adviser and the world’s richest unelected bureaucrat Elon Musk – criticized the leader for being “pathetic” for mourning what the chair sees as the potential end of a decades-old trans-Atlantic alliance. 

Musk was also caught crying during an interview a few years ago. But what moved Musk to tears was fear over the future of his companies – not the security of hundreds of millions of people. 

“Creating a company is almost like creating a child. How do you say your child should not have food?” Musk said at the time, stopping the interview to dry his eyes. 

But the stakes are much higher in Munich.

“The message from Munich is clear. Europe is not nice to have. Europe is a must have,” Heusgen said days earlier at the start of the conference.