US President Donald Trump holds a bilateral meeting with European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City on September 23, 2025.
Brendan Smialowski | Afp | Getty Images
Europe is “totally on the sidelines” on the global stage as “wrecking ball” politics has become the norm, the head of the continent’s biggest security forum has said.
Speaking to CNBC’s Annette Weisbach ahead of the Munich Security Conference (MSC), Wolfgang Ischinger, the organization’s chairman, said it was Europe’s “own fault” that its power on the global stage has been diminished.
“Europe has failed to speak with one voice to China and about China, Europe has failed with one voice, to come up with a clear concept about the future of the Middle East, including about how to deal or not to deal with the Iranian nuclear question,” said Ischinger, who is a former German ambassador to the U.S.
Earlier this week, the MSC published its 2026 report, for which Ischinger wrote the foreword. It warned that “the world has entered a period of wrecking-ball politics,” where “sweeping destruction … is the order of the day.”
The report said that U.S President Donald Trump was “at the forefront of those who promise to free their countries from the existing order’s constraints and rebuild stronger, more prosperous nations,” arguing he was just one movement “driven by resentment and regret over the liberal trajectory their societies have embarked on.”
Ischinger told CNBC that Europeans were “totally on the sidelines” on negotiations around Gaza and Ukraine.
“We have no role. Things have been decided by others,” he said. “When I look at the war in Ukraine, Europe has no place,” he said, adding the U.S. and Russia were leading discussions.
U.S. delegates have been helming peace talks with officials from Ukraine and Russia since late 2025, with European officials scrambling to maintain a say on how to end the four-year war between the two countries.
“Why the hell do we not have a place at the table? This is our continent. It’s our future,” Ischinger said on Friday. “The answer, of course, is not that Donald Trump is making a mistake. The answer … is that we have failed to speak with one voice.”
Ischinger added that he rejected “the blame game regarding the United States,” but for areas where Europe “clearly failed” to adopt a strategic position.
Delegates from all over the world are gathering for the Munich Security Conference on Friday. The event runs through Sunday.
Ischinger told CNBC that the “wrecking ball” was “being used by many” in addition to Trump, including right-wing extremist parties across Europe and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
But he called Trump “the single most prominent example” of someone who “questions existing arrangements and tries to replace them.” “That is for countries like Germany, which have been so dependent on the existing international rules … a worrisome development,” he added.
CNBC reached out to both the White House and the Kremlin for responses to the MSC’s commentary.
Transatlantic trust had also been damaged by Trump’s push for the U.S. to annex Greenland, Ischinger said.
After weeks of rhetoric on bringing the Arctic island — a Danish territory — under Washington’s control, Trump threatened to impose tariffs on European allies who stood in his way, before announcing a “deal” on Greenland had been reached.
Since Trump’s return to the White House, European leaders have been making commitments to drastically increase security spending. Last summer, European members of NATO agreed to raise defense spending to 5% of their individual national GDP — a move Trump had been pushing for for some time.
The spending plans have bolstered European defense primes, some of which have seen their shares more than double in value, while order backlogs have hit record levels.
Ischinger told CNBC Europe needed “to create a more consolidated, a more competitive, a more unified defense industry.”