The Prime Minister’s remarks at a panel discussion on “Fortifying Democratic Resilience”

Excerpt. As delivered (transcribed)

(Challenges for democracy and the ruling political parties)

First of all, I think all societies and all political systems are under tremendous pressure from technology, from what the Munich Conference has identified as the main challenge in today's world, and pretty similar to what the World Economic Forum did; as number one, misinformation, fake news. – And all of that coming at us at the core of democracy, which I think is a huge challenge, especially when political parties take a grab of that approach to politics to manipulate facts. So, this is pressure on the social fabric, so to say.

You don't eat democracy for breakfast. It is not democracy that fix your children when they don't succeed at school. This is about the reality of what your daily life is. If you go through, as we do as a political party – in cooperation with sister parties in our part of the world; the number one theme on people's concerns these last years has been cost of living and purchase power going down. And until you fix that and give security to that, everything else becomes a bit irrelevant. And then you become vulnerable to misinformation, to quick fix, which does not necessarily reflect realities.

So, for me, I think what we've had over these last years with the inflation coming back, it's a cancer in the system functioning of democracies, speedily going up and rapidly coming down, it should be said. But this is destabilizing the social fabric of our countries. So, for my government, it has been top priority to get inflation down and, in the meantime, have social policies that are there to make welfare state work for those who need it. So, we have taken down the price of kindergartens, childcare, etc. We have increased pensions for those with the lowest incomes throughout. A lot of social spending on that side of the equation so that people can see that we are working for their position, their dignity, their ability to manage their lives.

When you get back our stability – and we've been able to go through that inflation phase without increasing unemployment – but still in our country, which is a stable country, you can sense the instability that inflation is creating because costs of living are getting out of control. So, that's why we have to get back.

(On freedom)

Then, I think the second dimension for me here, if I may, is that – I'm picking the example from Timothy Snyder's recent book ‘On freedom’ – he was in Oslo and in a panel, I was on that panel with him – which is the balance between ‘freedom to’ and ‘freedom from’. And if freedom only becomes a discussion of ‘freedom from’, we are not safeguarding democratic sustainability. There has also to be ‘freedom to’; freedom to take an education, freedom to get a decent job, freedom to be at work with a decent work, not to be put aside. Snyder's example is from the Ukrainian village that had been de-occupied. Russians had pulled back. So, the question is, are they free now? Well, they are free from occupation, but they are not free to enjoy what you need to do to enjoy a decent life.

So, I think these issues about securing people's ability to live decent lives, combined with managing their daily economic outcome, safety of their children, investing in sports, leisure and activity for children, so they get to be involved in community, that is where the Centre-left parties should be. And that's where we aim to be and that's where we also aim to win elections, on that basis.

(On immigration in Europe)

Here's one issue I have with the Vice President's (Vance) speech. I have a few, but this one, let's mention this one. He speaks as though we are not focusing on immigration in Europe. I mean, this is the big theme in every country; that we want to have control of our borders, we want to have controlled immigration, and this is the key theme, I think, all across Europe.

But then he makes the remark that there was a significant increase of immigrants, unvetted immigrants to Europe in recent years. Where did they come from? – Ukraine. Look to Poland. Two million or more Ukrainians have been accepted into Poland because there is a war going on, which he did not mention, and then not really addressing the reality in Europe.

We have to, in Europe, country by country, but also as a community, to have a very thorough discussion about controlled immigration. And as you say, we cannot close Europe because Europe's challenge in the future will probably be to have enough people to do the jobs we need to do, and to pay taxes. But again, I think that the fact that we have, in my country, 100,000 people from Ukraine now; if you take that per capita, it would mean, in the German setting, two or three million, and in every municipality. So, how do you – this is a part of the solidarity that you have to mobilize spontaneously. Those Ukrainians coming, men, women and children, they turn up at some kindergarten, in some school, at some medical office, and there will be discussion, you know, what are they doing here, are they taking our places? But if you really explain why we do this, in this very dire situation, it can also be understood. And I'm proud to see that that has not unleashed negative reactions in my country.

(On parliamentarism)

I think what is refreshing is that when we come together here, there is freedom of speech. And the Vice President can decide that this is how he would like to address his audience. He likes to raise his themes. And although we may disagree, that is fair enough. But I think, you know, not addressing some of the key security issues that we face today is a missed opportunity. I don't agree with him that what's happening in Ukraine, what's happening in Russia, what's happening in China is less important than the presumed loss of freedom of speech in Europe. I disagree.

The other element which I think is interesting is that, you know, coming from the U.S. perspective, reading a parliamentary system in Europe, it is different. So, this party (AfD) is free to run in elections in Germany. But other parties are free to tell their voters whether they are, you know, open to cooperate or not. This is part of parliamentarism.

You know, I run a minority government in Norway. I have to find solutions in parliament. And I seek solutions where I can have them, with parties that share my platform. That is how that works. So, I think, you know, this was a kind of a simplified approach, which I don't share. But what I do share is that constantly focusing on, you know, accepting different views, accepting even outrageous views in our debate, accepting that people have faith and beliefs. He (Vance) also made points about that. I think that's what we should remind each other.

I mean, he is here now, speaking to Europe. If we were going to his country to speak about what we see in the U.S. about, you know, tech dominance, is there access to media for people, what's happening to the youth and the control of social media, is that, you know, challenging the freedoms and democracy? I think that's also a discussion to be had.

(On security threats)

You know, at the NATO summit last year, we agreed as NATO parties that hybrid threats are real threats. They are security threats. So, I think the thing to say that, you know, if you are vulnerable to foreign intervention, you have a weak case because you should be able to resist that. I think that is denying some hard realities that we all face. We have to be better at identifying hybrid threats and attributing hybrid threats. And we are becoming better, but we have to work on that together.

 

More information, see:

• Agenda and Livestreams: Munich Security Conference 2025