The Vice Chairman of the Munich Security Conference, Rainer Rudolph, has welcomed India’s contribution toward ending the Russia-Ukraine war, emphasizing the need to uphold international principles. Speaking on Wednesday, Rudolph described the conflict as a “war of aggression” by one United Nations member against another.
“Any contribution to peacefully end this war is welcome. This is not a conflict; this is a war of aggression by one member of the United Nations against another. It’s these principles that have to be kept in mind when we talk about ending the war peacefully,” Rudolph told ANI on the sidelines of the Raisina Dialogue in Delhi.
Reaffirming the importance of safeguarding Ukraine’s territorial integrity, he added, “It’s important to remember that Ukraine’s territorial integrity must be maintained, and it’s the Ukrainians themselves who have to decide their country’s destiny.”
Commenting on the recent speech by United States Vice-President J.D. Vance at the American Dynamism Summit on Tuesday, Rudolph noted that while he may not entirely agree with Vance’s message to Europeans, it served as a “wake-up call” for the continent to strengthen its foreign policy.
“Obviously, he chose a public event to give his message to the Germans and to the Europeans beyond that, even if at first sight it was a domestic situation in Europe as he saw it, with which maybe I would not always agree with how he presented it. But still, it had a foreign policy effect because it served as a wake-up call to Europeans that we have to invest more in our security and develop a stronger European foreign policy,” he said.
Expressing confidence in the evolving US-Europe relationship, Rudolph remarked, “I think the relationship between Europe and the US will develop. JD Vance also said that, and the administration has since confirmed it. They are still committed to NATO and the alliance. The relationship is changing, and as far as we Europeans are concerned, we will have to contribute our share to common security.”
During the summit, Vance also criticized the tendency to “use cheap labor as a crutch,” arguing that it hampers global innovation.
“Our workers, the populists on the one hand, the tech optimists on the other, have been failed by this government,” Vance said, as reported by Fox News.
He further said, “Not just the government of the last administration, but the government in some ways of the last 40 years, because there were two conceits that our leadership class had when it came to globalization.”
Addressing how other nations are gaining ground on the United States, Fox News reported Vance as saying, “Now, we assume that other nations will always trail us in the value chain, but it turns out that as they got better at the low end of the value chain, they also started catching up on the higher end. We were squeezed from both ends. Now, that was the first conceit of globalization.”
(Inputs from ANI)
