Icon: enlarge
US President Joe Biden
Photo: Evan Vucci / AP
The Munich Security Conference can look forward to the acceptance of an extremely prominent participant: US President Joe Biden will be virtually connected to the conference next week.
This was announced by conference leader Wolfgang Ischinger.
Ischinger spoke of "extremely good news".
For the first time since taking office on January 20, Biden will address a European audience at the conference on February 19.
In the nearly six decades since the Security Conference was founded, Biden is the first US president to attend the conference.
The United States usually sends Vice Presidents, Foreign Ministers, and Defense Ministers to Munich.
Ischinger: Biden will expect security-political burden-sharing
The decision to appear at the security conference shows that Biden attaches particular importance to Germany, said Ischinger.
Biden's participation means "that he also has high expectations of Germany's leaders in terms of transatlantic relations."
Ischinger expects that Biden expects Europe to share the burden of security policy.
The reason is that the US is facing "major and very expensive strategic challenges" in the Asia-Pacific region.
The world's most important expert meeting on security policy should actually take place between February 19 and 21 in the Hotel Bayerischer Hof in Munich.
Because of the corona pandemic, it will now be an online event that will only last a few hours.
Ischinger wants to make up for the physical conference later
In addition to Biden, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, UN Secretary General António Guterres and the US Climate Commissioner John Kerry are expected to speak.
It was initially unclear whether Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) would take part.
Conference chief Ischinger plans to hold a security conference with physical participation later in the year.
Ischinger said he hoped that Biden might be able to take part.
"If we can arrange it so that it coincides with another obligation of the American President in Europe, then I can imagine it."
Icon: The mirror
fek / dpa / Reuters