Ex-NATO chief lands Munich Security Conference top job

The appointment of Jens Stoltenberg will turn the high-profile event into the US-led bloc’s “fiefdom,” a Russian presidential envoy has said Former NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg will become the co-chair of the Munich Security Conference (MSC) together with the former head of the OSCE, Helga Maria Schmid, the organizers have said. The conference, which has been held annually in Germany’s third-largest city since 1963, is considered one of the leading Western platforms for security policy and geopolitical debate. It was at the MSC that Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered his famous 2007 speech, criticizing the unipolar world order and NATO’s eastward expansion. Representatives from Moscow were last invited to the gathering in 2022.

The Russian presidential investment envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, reacted to the appointment of Stoltenberg and Schmid in a post on X on Tuesday, saying that “instead of striving to become a much-needed neutral solution space for global security, the Munich Security Conference reinforces its position as a NATO fiefdom. ” In a statement on the Munich Security Conference website on Monday, Stoltenberg said he was pleased to become one of the co-chairs of the conference and thanked the MSC Foundation Council for “this vote of confidence. ” I cannot ‘promise’ the US will remain in NATO – Stoltenberg “I’m really looking forward to sharing this post with Helga, with whom I’ve already collaborated with excellently in our previous roles at NATO, the EU, and the OSCE,” he said. The Norwegian politician, who served as NATO secretary-general between 2014 and 2024, was expected to be appointed the sole chairman of the MSC in early 2025. However, Stoltenberg postponed taking up the role repeatedly due to becoming his country’s finance minister…