Vance slams Europe's 'firewalls' after meeting with German far-right leader

US Vice President JD Vance has met the leader of a German far-right party during a visit to Munich, days before a German election and after telling European leaders about the state of democracy. He said there is no place for "firewalls."

Vance met with Alice Weidel, the co-leader and candidate for chancellor of the far-right and anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party or AfD on Friday, his office said.

Mainstream German parties say they won't work with the party, a stance often referred to as a "firewall." Polls put AfD, in second place going into the February 23 election with about 20 percent support.

News of the meeting came after top German officials pushed back hard against Vance's complaints about the state of democracy in Europe, with the defence minister calling it "unacceptable". He and Chancellor Olaf Scholz defended German mainstream parties' firewall.

Vance said on Friday at the Munich Security Conference that he fears free speech is "in retreat" across the continent.

'Old entrenched interests'

"To many of us on the other side of the Atlantic, it looks more and more like old entrenched interests hiding behind ugly Soviet-era words like misinformation and disinformation, who simply don't like the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express a different opinion or, God forbid, vote a different way, or even worse, win an election,” Vance said.

German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, speaking a couple of hours later, said he couldn't let the speech go without comment.

"If I understood him correctly, he is comparing conditions in parts of Europe with those in authoritarian regimes," Pistorius said. "That is unacceptable, and it is not the Europe and not the democracy in which I live and am currently campaigning."

Vance also told European leaders that no democracy could survive telling millions of voters that their concerns "are invalid or unworthy of even being considered."

"Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters," he said. "There's no room for firewalls."

Pistorius countered that "every opinion has a voice in this democracy. It makes it possible for partly extremist parties like AfD to campaign completely normally, just like every other party."

Scholz rejects Vance's comments

He noted that Weidel was on prime-time German television on Thursday night along with the other contenders.

But he added that "democracy doesn't mean that the loud minority is automatically right," and that "democracy must be able to defend itself against the extremists who want to destroy it."

Scholz posted on social network X to "emphatically reject" Vance's comments.

"Out of the experiences of Nazism, the democratic parties in Germany have a joint consensus — that is the firewall against extreme right-wing parties," he wrote.

Bavarian governor Markus Soder — a prominent figure in Germany's centre-right opposition bloc, which leads pre-election polls — told reporters that "we take every opinion seriously, but we decide ourselves with whom we form a coalition," German news agency dpa reported.

In a post on X earlier Friday, Weidel wrote "Excellent speech! 'There's no room for firewalls!'"

Vance's meeting with Weidel came after she was received on Wednesday by Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store took issue with how Vance urged European officials to stem irregular migration in Friday's speech. Vance said the European electorate didn’t vote to open “floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants.”

"He speaks as though we are not focused on immigration in Europe," Gahr Store said.