Munich Security Conference


The Munich Security Conference is an annual conference on international security policy that has taken place in Munich, Bavaria since 1963. Former names are Wehrkundetagung and Münchner Konferenz für Sicherheitspolitik. It is the world's largest gathering of its kind.
Over the past four decades the Munich Security Conference has become the most important independent forum for the exchange of views by international security policy decision-makers. Each year it brings together about 350 senior figures from more than 70 countries around the world to engage in an intensive debate on current and future security challenges.
The list of attendees includes Heads of States, Governments and International Organizations, Ministers, Members of Parliament, high-ranking representatives of Armed Forces, Science, Civil society as well as Business and Media.
The conference is held annually in February. The venue is the Hotel Bayerischer Hof in Munich, Germany. The 56th Security Conference was held from 14 to 16 February 2020.

History

The conference evolved from the Internationale Wehrkundebegegnung / Münchner Wehrkundetagung, which was founded in 1963 by Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist-Schmenzin. The resistance fighter from the Stauffenberg circle advocated to prevent military conflicts such as the Second World War in the future and brought together leaders and experts in security policy for this reason. The first meeting was limited to about 60 participants; among them were Helmut Schmidt and Henry Kissinger. Von Kleist led the meetings until 1997; his successor who led them from 1999 until 2008 was politician and business manager Horst Teltschik. Since 2009, the conference is headed by the former diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger. Ischinger established the Munich Security Conference gGmbH non-profit foundation in 2011, which he has led since then.
The Munich Security Conference was canceled twice, in 1991 due to the First Gulf War and 1997 as a result of the retirement of Kleist-Schmenzin. Under the leadership of Teltschik the Security Conference opened in 1999 for political, military and business leaders from Central and Eastern Europe as well as India, Japan and the People's Republic of China.

Purpose

At this conference, under the theme of peace through dialogue, senior politicians, diplomats, military and security experts from the member countries of NATO and the European Union, but also from other countries such as China, India, Iran, Japan and Russia are invited to discuss the current issues in security and defense policies.
The intention of the conference is to address the topical main security issues and to debate and analyze the main security challenges in the present and the future in line with the concept of networked security. A focal point of the conference is the discussion and the exchange of views on the development of the relations as well as European and global security in the 21st century.
The conference is organized privately and therefore not an official government event. It is used exclusively for discussion; an authorization for binding intergovernmental decisions does not exist. Furthermore, there is - contrary to usual conventions - no common final communiqué. The high-level meeting is also used to discrete background discussions between the participants. An exception is the presentation of global political decisions, such as the exchange of instruments of ratification for the New START disarmament agreement between the United States and Russia, which was held at the conclusion of the security conference in 2011.

Conferences

At the 39th Conference 2003, German Minister for Foreign Affairs Fischer doubted to the reasoning of the US government for a war against Iraq with the words "Excuse me, I am not convinced".
From February 6–8, 2009, the 45th Munich Security Conference was attended by over 50 ministers and more than a dozen heads of state and government from all over the world, including US-Vice-President Joe Biden, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
In 2009 the MSC inaugurated the Ewald von Kleist Award. The new award highlights the political life and work of Ewald von Kleist, who founded the Munich Security Conference. The award will be given to prominent individuals who have made an outstanding contribution to peace and conflict resolution. The winners of the Ewald von Kleist Award were in 2009 Dr Henry Kissinger and in 2010 Javier Solana de Madariaga. Also in 2009, the MSC initiated a new event format, called MSC Core Group Meeting. This new and smaller-scale event was introduced in addition to the annual main, Munich-based meeting of the Munich Security Conference. The idea is to invite a number of distinguished and high-ranking participants to changing capitals and give them the opportunity to confidentially discuss current international security policy issues and develop sustainable solutions. Meetings took place 2009 in Washington D.C., 2010 in Moscow and 2011 in Beijing.
, Josef Ackermann, Robert B. Zoellick, Peer Steinbrück, George Soros
The 47th Munich Security Conference was held from February 4–6, 2011 and has again assembled top-level decision makers from all over the world, including UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov whilst Belarus has been excluded from the circle of MSC attendees because of the country's human rights situation.
In 2011 two special features marked the growing role of the Munich Security Conference as center of attention of international security policy: European Union's High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton called for the Quartet on the Middle East, consisting of the EU, Russia, the United States and the UN, to meet within the setting of the 2011 Munich Security Conference and during a ceremony on the sidelines of the conference Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton exchanged the instruments for ratifying the New START Treaty that entered into force in Munich New START.
The 48th Munich Security Conference was held from February 2–5, 2012.

Conference 2019

The 55th Munich Security Conference took place from 15 to 17 February 2019 at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof in Munich. Among the 600 participants were heads of state and government from more than 35 countries, 50 foreign and 30 defence ministers, other representatives from the fields of politics, the military, the arms industry, business and science, as well as members of international intergovernmental and civil society organizations.

Welcome

The chairman of the conference Wolfgang Ischinger opened the event with the motto "The Great Puzzle: Who Will Pick Up the Pieces?" The question was also discussed in the "Munich Security Report", the annual publication accompanying the event. Ischinger described "a reorganization of central building blocks of the international order", which is characterized by a new era of Great Power rivalries between the USA, China and Russia as well as a certain leadership vacuum in the "liberal world order". Prior to this he had emphasized the importance of multilateralism in today's world and described the European Union in this context as "alive and kicking".

Opening statements

and British Defence Minister Gavin Williamson spoke at the opening. Both politicians advocated greater European cooperation in defence. Williamson highlighted the growing global threats and stressed the importance of the continued close cooperation of the NATO partners despite Brexit, as NATO is indispensable for the protection of citizens. Von der Leyen spoke of "the Great Powers returning to rivalry", which also affected Germany and Europe She declared that she would continue to support a closer military cooperation between the EU and the United Kingdom even after Brexit.
Among the main topics of the conference were "the self-assertion of the European Union, transatlantic cooperation and the possible effects of a new era of competition between major powers" When discussing European security, the European NATO members' defence budgets were also discussed. Other topics included the security situation in the Sahel, Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, the Middle East and Syria, and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and trade barriers.

International cooperation

During a panel discussion on the future of defense alliances, the Japanese Foreign Minister Tarō Kōno called for greater international cooperation for the protection of the international order: "If the U.S. can no longer act alone as a policeman, Japan, Europe and other like-minded countries will have to increase burden-sharing" Other participants in the discussion, however, expressed doubts as to whether cooperating Central Powers will be able to stand their ground against rivaling goals of the Great Powers.
The Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif criticized the USA's demand to the Europeans to withdraw from the nuclear agreement with Iran and urged the European states to make a greater effort to preserve the agreement.

Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF)

Another focus of the conference was the INF Treaty. The speeches of the Vice President of the United States Mike Pence and the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made it clear that the failure of the INF Treaty can hardly be prevented. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg described the consequences of a failure of the INF Treaty as "very serious". In order to save the treaty, some participants expressed the hope that China would participate in the negotiations on medium-range nuclear systems, but this was rejected by the Chinese foreign policy expert Yang Jiechi, as China rejects a "multilateralisation of the INF Treaty for the Asia-Pacific region". India expressed similar sentiments.
Chancellor Merkel warned against "blind rearmament" should the INF Treaty fail.

Transatlantic relations

When discussing transatlantic relations Observers described "rifts between the USA and Germany". These were also evident in the speech by Vice President Mike Pence, who defended US policy and called on European states to give the US more support in the conflicts with Iran or the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project. NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg emphasized the importance of multilateral structures and transatlantic cooperation in his speech. German Chancellor Angela Merkel also emphasized the importance of international cooperation: "We must not break this up" Within the US delegation, opinions were divided. Former US Vice President Joe Biden, for example, was very critical of the current president's policies: "This will pass! We'll be back!"

Climate change and security

For the first time since the conference was founded, a panel discussion on the topic of "Climate Change and Security" was included in the conference's main programme. The German climate researcher Hans Joachim Schellnhuber warned sternly about the consequences of climate change. Bunny McDiarmid, co-managing director of Greenpeace, explained the European Fridays for Future movement to the audience and said: "We have schoolchildren marching in the streets because they don't believe that politicians act fast enough." Amnesty International Secretary-General Kumi Naidoo warned: "Nature does not negotiate." Representatives of the US government did not take part in the discussion. However, former US Secretary of State John Kerry sat in the audience and declared politics as being in the process of committing "consensual suicide of our planet".

Participants

Among the heads of state and government attending the event were German Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan, Klaus Iohannis of Romania, as well as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Hasina Wajed, and the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.
The US delegation included US Vice President Mike Pence, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, the daughter of the US President, Ivanka Trump, and her husband Jared Kushner.
Other guests included Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, EU Foreign Affairs Commissioner Federica Mogherini, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, IMF Director Christine Lagarde, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Jawad Sarif, Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohamed Ali Alhakim, the British Minister of Defence Gavin Williamson and his French colleague Florence Parly, Yang Jiechi, as a member of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party responsible for foreign policy, and the Nobel Peace Prize winners Tawakkol Karman and Beatrice Fihn.
On behalf of the German Federal Government, in addition to Chancellor Merkel and Defence Minister von der Leyen, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, Vice-Chancellor and Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, Economics Minister Peter Altmaier, Health Minister Jens Spahn and Agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner attended the conference.
The French President Emmanuel Macron, as well as the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have cancelled their visit.

Award ceremonies

This year, the annual Ewald von Kleist Preis awarded at the conference was awarded to the Prime Ministers of Greece, Alexis Tsipras, and Northern Macedonia, Zoran Zaev, for their agreement in the name dispute between the two countries.
For the first time during the conference, the John McCain Dissertation Award for outstanding research on security-political issues was presented.

Side events

In addition to the main conference there were numerous side events, including the Munich Young Leaders Program organized by the MSC and the Körber Foundation, and other events on climate change and security hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme, energy security, cyber security, health security and international threats.

Evaluation

According to conference chairman Wolfgang Ischinger, it was one of the most important conferences of recent years, as it had become clear that the international system was under extreme threat. By far the most important speech, in his opinion, came from Angela Merkel. As a negative tendency, it could be observed that although conflict parties used the conference to present their position, they did not want to discuss with each other what had originally been the strength of the conference.

Conference 2018

The 54th Munich Security Conference took place from the 16 to 18 February 2018 at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof in Munich.

Opening

and French Defence Minister Florence Parly spoke at the opening and reaffirmed their commitment to stronger military cooperation. According to von der Leyen, marks an important step towards a European Security and Defense Union. Parly added: PESCO should ignite a "Cultural Revolution" coming, followed by further projects.

Agenda

The Munich Security Report 2018 was published before the conference with the title? "To the Brink - and Back?".
The key themes of the conference and the Munich Security Report 2018 included the crisis of the liberal international order and the consequences from Donald Trumps first year of US presidency. "Last year, the world moved too close to a major international conflict," MSC chairman Wolfgang Ischinger stated in the run-up to the conference. "The rhetorical escalations of individual decision-makers are very worrying, whether on the Korean peninsula, in the Gulf or in Eastern Europe - if someone makes a wrong decision in charged situations, that could quickly set off a dangerous chain reaction," Ischinger warned.
In particular, the future and capacity of the European Union and its relations with Russia and the United States were on the agenda of the MSC 2018. In addition, the threat of the liberal international order, the numerous conflicts in the Middle East - in particular the worsening relations between the Gulf States - and the development of the political situation in the Sahel were discussed. Also disarmament issues were discussed, especially with respects to the conflict over the North Korean nuclear program.
Panel discussions took place on the following topics:
was the first-ever Israeli Prime Minister to take part in the conference. While delivering his remarks, Netanyahu brandished a wing flap from an Iranian drone that infiltrated Israel a few weeks earlier and was shot down. Netanyahu's dramatic display grabbed headlines around the world and inspired memes on social media. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif called Netanyahu's prop a "cartoonish circus" that "does not even deserve the dignity of a response." Netanyahu said the fact that Zarif was forced to respond was "the whole point" of the display and a public relations win. Netanyahu's spokesman David Keyes was credited for his role in shaping the prime minister's media strategy.
Other guests included UN Secretary-General António Guterres, EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
Arriving from the US were Secretary of Defense General James Mattis and National Security Advisor to US President Donald Trump, H.R. McMaster. The delegation of the US Congress was chaired by Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Robert Corker.
Other visiting heads of state and heads of government included Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, Rwandan President Paul Kagame, and Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Theresa May, her Austrian counterpart Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and the Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım also participated in the MSC, as well as the Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.
Numerous international organizations were also represented at MSC 2018. Secretary-General of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Thomas Greminger, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Fatou Bensouda and Director of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde participated. Other participants also included, Commission President of the African Union Moussa Faki Mahamat, Director of the World Food Programme David Beasley, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross Peter Maurer, and Executive Director of Human Rights Watch Kenneth Roth.
Representatives of the leading federal regimes which attended the conference together with more than 30 members of parliament from all political groups were Federal Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen, Federal Interior Minister Thomas de Maizièreand Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, Gerd Müller.

Side events

The main conference was accompanied by numerous side events organized by international institutions and organizations. These included the United Nations, the African Union, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in, NATO, and NGOs and institutions such as the Robert Bosch Stiftung, the International Cooperation Agency, Transparency International, German Aerospace Center, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Atlantic Council.
In addition, there were public events such as a literary series with the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels and several events on technology and cyber issues. On the eve of the conference, MSC hosted a "Town Hall Meeting" entitled "The Force Awakens: Artificial Intelligence and Modern Conflict" at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof.

Award ceremonies

The American politician John McCain was awarded the Ewald-von-Kleist-Preis for his services to the transatlantic relationship and the security conference. Since Senator McCain could not travel to Munich due to illness, his wife Cindy accepted the prize for him. For many years, Senator McCain led the US congressional delegations at security conferences.
Wolfgang Ischinger, chairman of the conference, was awarded the Nunn-Lugar Award for Promoting Nuclear Security by the Carnegie Corporation and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Statements

, the former US Ambassador to NATO, stated: "We have troops in Poland and three Baltic countries. I think NATO is unified. We have to continue the sanctions against Russia." Konstantin Kosachev, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Russian Senate, claimed that "NATO’s continued existence provokes new threats, rather than overcoming them. This conference has always been anti-Russian. Unfortunately, they try to blame Russia for all the problems facing the West." German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel accused Russia and China of trying to "undermine" the liberal Western world order. Gabriel said that "Nobody should attempt to divide the European Union: not Russia, not China and also not the United States."

Security Measures

The Munich city center was guarded by 4,000 police officers. According to the police, around 20 counter-demonstrations were planned.

Conference 2017

The 53rd Munich Security Conference took place from 17 to 19 February 2017 at the Bayerischer Hof hotel in Munich. With a total of 680 participants, including 30 heads of state and government, nearly 60 representatives of international organizations and 65 top business leaders, it was the largest conference to date. Prominent guests and speakers were UN Secretary General António Guterres, US Vice President Mike Pence, US Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Federica Mogherini, Donald Tusk and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. 700 journalists were also accredited for the event. In addition to the main events of the security conference, there were 1,350 bilateral meetings among MSC participants and delegations. The conferences focused on the future of the EU, the Future of the West and NATO, China's foreign policy, Global Health Risks, Fight against Terrorism, Middle East and Iran as well as the US foreign policy towards Russia.

Conference 2016

The 52nd Munich Security Conference took place from 12 to 14 February 2016. 600 international guests attended the event, including 30 heads of state, 70 foreign and defense ministers, directors of various intelligence agencies and 700 journalists from 48 countries.
The conferences focused on the conflict between NATO and the Russian Federation, Syria and the fight against IS, Middle East situation, Future of NATO, North Korean nuclear program, Intelligence Services, Ewald von Kleist Award 2016, Situation in Africa as well as Refugee crisis.

Conference 2015

The 51st Munich Security Conference was held from 6 to 8 February 2015. Among the more than 400 international participants from nearly 80 countries were also 20 heads of state, 70 foreign and defense ministers and 30 CEOs of large companies. The conferences focused on the conflict in Ukraine, nuclear negotiations with Iran and the war on terror as well as the global refugees crisis.

Conference 2014

The 50th Munich Security Conference was held from the 31 January to 2 February 2014. The conference focused on the Euromaidan, New security risks, Loss of importance for Europe, NSA-Affair and New order in former Yugoslavia, as well as Middle east, and Iran's nuclear programme.

Conference 2013

The 49th Munich Security Conference was held from the 1 to 3 February 2013. The conference focused on the European debt crisis, transatlantic relations, the crisis regions of Mali and the Middle East, as well as energy security and cyber terrorism.

Other Events

In 2009 two other events were launched and have been conducted annually since then. In 2013, the Cyber Security Summit was created as a fourth conference series. Since 2013 Munich Security Conference and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung organize an annual Energy Security Summit.

Munich Young Leaders

In 2009, the Munich Young Leaders was first launched in cooperation with the Körber Foundation. Held in parallel to the Security Conference, this annual roundtable series is designed to directly involve the next generation of decision-makers into the main conference proceedings. The Roundtable agendas as well as the participants and speakers lists are published online.

Core Group Meetings

In addition to the main conference, a new series of events, the MSC Core Group Meetings, were launched in November 2009 in Washington, DC. The meetings provide a select group of participants the opportunity to discuss key issues of international security policy in order to continue the work of the Security Conference and provide impulses. The location of the Core Group Meetings always varies. The subsequent events took place in Moscow in 2010, Beijing in 2011, as well as Doha in 2013. A second meeting was held for the first time in 2013 in Washington, DC. The location of the 2014 Core Group Meeting was New Delhi. The issues discussed in New Delhi were the threats of terrorism and cyber-attacks, questions of maritime security, regional and global security structures and concepts for new global governance.
The Core Group Meeting 2015 was held in Vienna. The crisis in Ukraine was a central theme of the meeting, which featured the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin and the Russian deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Meshkov. Klimkin urged the European states to confront the Russian government head-on. The Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz stated that any border changes in Europe were "unacceptable", but at the same time stressed the need for cooperation with Russia. While the Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter proposed a neutral status for Ukraine, the Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dačić as OSCE Chairman called for a strengthening of his organization in order to prevent future conflicts.
Another Core Group Meeting took place in Tehran in October 2015. Key topics of the meeting were the implementation of the Vienna Agreement concerning the Iranian nuclear program and the political situation in the region. German Foreign Minister Steinmeier, who opened the conference together with the Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif, emphasized the importance of transparency and trust for the successful implementation of the Vienna agreement: "After the game is before the game". Regarding the war in Syria, the Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif announced the readiness of his country to cooperate with all governments involved in resolving the conflict.
In April 2016, another MSC Core Group Meeting took place in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. The security situation in Africa, the fight against international terrorism, and the challenges posed by climate change and epidemics were central themes of the meeting. The Ethiopian Foreign Minister Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stressed the mutual global interdependencies in all of these issues. Other participants included Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, Smaїl Chergui, African Union Commissioner, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and former German President Horst Köhler.
Another Core Group Meeting was held in Beijing in November 2016. Key topics of the meeting were China's role in the international order, conflicts in the Asia-Pacific region and the geopolitical importance of the "New Silk Road". Deputy Chinese Foreign Minister, Zhang Yesui, stressed in his opening speech the importance of dialogue and cooperation for the security of the region. During the core group meeting, Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao, reaffirmed his country's willingness to contribute to peace and security globally. Other participants included Fu Ying, chairwoman of the National People's Congress Foreign Affairs Committee, Louise Mushikiwabo, Rwandan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Markus Ederer, secretary of state at the German Foreign Office, Tom Enders, CEO of Airbus Group, and several members of the Bundestag.

Cyber Security Summit

In 2012, the first Cyber Security Summit was held in cooperation with Deutsche Telekom in Bonn. The first event was conducted under Chatham House Rule. According to media reports, the supervisory board chairman of Deutsche Bank, Paul Achleitner, the head of the construction group Bilfinger Berger, Roland Koch, as well as Peter Terium, the CEO of the energy supplier RWE and Johannes Teyssen of E.ON were in attendance.
During the summit several working groups analyzed existing cyber risks and dangers for the following industries:
On November 11, 2013 the second summit took place in Bonn. The gathering had the following four topics:
  1. Rebuilding trust in the digital society
  2. New threat scenarios for the economy
  3. Gaining trust, restoring trust
  4. Cyber defense is becoming a business-critical core skill
Unlike in 2012, the list of speakers was published:
The third summit was held on 3 November 2014. It was attended by 180 representatives from the fields of politics, economy, EU and NATO. In his opening speech, Telekom CEO Höttges highlighted the growing number of attacks on data and digital infrastructures, where the Telekom network recorded 1 Million attacks daily. He quoted a CSIS study that estimated the global damage caused by cybercrime to be US$575 billion per year. To protect European data against access by US authorities, Höttges called for a revision of the Safe Harbor Agreement. The intelligence coordinator of the federal government, Klaus-Dieter Fritsche, supported Höttges demands.
MSC Chairman Ischinger described the great geopolitical importance of cyber security as a result of Ukraine conflict, which had marked the return of war as political means in Europe. State Secretary Brigitte Zypries stated the planned IT Security Act in which the reporting of cyber attacks on companies from sensitive sectors was an obligation as the contribution by the German Federal Government to increase data security. Andy Mueller-Maguhn, a former spokesman for the Chaos Computer Club, stressed the importance of strong encryption for data security and warned of the "back doors", like those that RSA Security installed for the NSA. Elmar Brok, Chairman of the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs, and Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg urged to ward off cyber attacks with offensive actions and stressed the need for a deterrence component. Ben Wizner, representative of the American Civil Liberties Union and lawyer of Edward Snowden, contradicted against those needs. In separate working groups, the topics of Digital Defense, Cyber governance, Promotion of Innovation in regards to data security and preventive data protection were also discussed.
The fourth Cyber Security Summit was held on 19 and 20 September 2016 Palo Alto, Silicon Valley. The summit was jointly convened by MSC, Deutsche Telekom and Stanford University. 140 representatives from the fields of politics, security and business participated in the gathering. A central theme of the meeting was the 2016 U.S. presidential election and its possible manipulation by cyber attacks. The chairman of the Munich Security Conference, Wolfgang Ischinger, expressed his fear that such attacks could damage confidence in democratic elections in general.
Further topics were the defense against cyberterrorism, the future of warfare, the economic relevance of cybersecurity and the development of norms and rules for the Internet. MSC chairman Ischinger called for closer coordination between the worlds of politics and technology, in order to create the basis for an open, free and secure web.
In connection with the Internet of Things, Marc Goodman from the American Think Tank Singularity University warned that "everything could be hacked". Goodman predicted the Internet would feature an "epic battle" of different interest groups. Peter R. Neumann from King's College London described the hierarchical structure of law enforcement agencies as an organizational problem in combating cyber-crime, at odds with the de-centralized operating mode of the Internet.
Other participants included Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder and CTO of CrowdStrike, Michael Chertoff, former United States Department of Homeland Security, chairman and founder of the Chertoff Group, Michael McFaul, director of the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University and former US Ambassador in Russia, and Iddo Moed, Coordinator of Cybersecurity for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Christopher Painter, Coordinator for Cyber Issues at the US State Department, Latha Reddy, former National Security Adviser of India and currently a member of the Global Commission on Internet Governance, as well as, Uri Rosenthal, former Dutch foreign minister and current Special Envoy of his country for cyber politics.

Energy Security Summit

Together with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the MSC has been organizing the Energy Security Summit since 2013. The first meeting was held on 10 July 2013 in the ballroom of the Frankfurt Palmengarten under the auspices of Federal Economics and Technology Minister Philipp Rösler and Environment Minister Peter Altmaier. Other topics of the event were climate change, the geostrategic consequences of fracking and the German Energy transition.
The second Energy Security Summit was held in Berlin on 27 and 28 May 2014. Key topics of the meeting included the "shale gas revolution" in the United States and the conflict in Ukraine. In his speech, Foreign Minister Steinmeier stressed the important role of energy policy for foreign and security policy. Steinmeier pushed for a European Energy Union and urged the EU countries to demonstrate unity with regard to the Ukraine conflict. The minister stressed the need to make compromises in the Russia-Ukraine gas dispute, and warned against too high expectations of substituting American shale gas for Russian gas supplies. EU Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger also spoke in favor of a European Energy Union with uniform gas prices. He also described Germany's energy policy as being in a "Romantic Valley”. The strategic issue of energy would require Germany to get involved with its technological and political competence, Oettinger stated. During the meeting, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk described the Ukraine conflict as a "global security conflict" which only Russia would be responsible for. Yatsenyuk reiterated his country's refusal to pay a "political price" in exchange for gas supplies from Russia. The premier also expressed the willingness of his country to participate in a common energy policy with the EU.
The third Energy Security Summit was held on 5 and 6 May 2015, again in Berlin. During the meeting, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zangeneh laid out his country's plans for the development of the energy sector after the end of sanctions. After the previously reached deal to resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis, the Minister demanded the rapid lifting of the economic sanctions. He dashed hopes that Tehran would build a gas pipeline to Europe to weaken the dominant role of Russia in the European gas market, citing transit problems and costs. At the same time, the Minister announced that his government would invest US$180 billion in the Iranian oil and gas industry by 2022. Other topics at the meeting included, among others, the proposed Energy Union in Europe, which both Maroš Šefčovič, Vice-President of the European Commission, and Rainer Baake, Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, called for, as well as the German energy transition. Bärbel Höhn, chairman of the German Bundestag's Environment Committee, referred to it as an important contribution by Germany to the creation of a global structure of a decentralized energy supply, which reduces dependencies and contributes to security and peace. Criticism came from Greenpeace head Kumi Naidoo, who stated that the high share of brown coal used for electricity generation was the “Achilles heel” of Germany's energy policy. Michael Fuchs, Deputy Chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, criticized the high burden placed on German citizens due to subsidies of 480 billion Euro earmarked for the energy transition.