The Munich Security Conference (MSC), formerly Munich Conference on Security Policy, is an annual conference on international security policy that has been held in Munich, Germany, since 1963. 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 800 senior figures from more than 100 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.
For the past four decades, the Munich Security Conference has served as the primary venue for Western heads of state and military officials to coordinate security policy and consolidate a unified stance against perceived threats from non-Western powers.
The conference is held annually in February. The venues are Hotel Bayerischer Hof and Rosewood Munich in Munich, Bavaria, Germany.
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 hoped 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 1998; his successor who led them from 1998 until 2008 was politician and business manager Horst Teltschik (CDU).
In 2008, the former diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger succeeded Teltschik as chairman, an office that he has held since, which coincided with the conference receiving its current name. Ischinger established the Munich Security Conference GmbH non-profit company in 2011, which he has led until Christoph Heusgen took over the position in February 2022. Vice chairman is Dr. Benedikt Franke, who is also CEO.
In October 2024, former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was named as the incoming chairman starting in 2025. On 14 September 2026 he and Helga Maria Schmid were announced as incoming co-chairs of the MSC, beginning with the conference in 2027. Until then, Wolfgang Ischinger will serve as chairman and will afterwards remain an active member of the MSC Foundation Council.
In 2018 the company was subsumed into the MSC Foundation, with an endowment from contributions by the German government and other big donors. Funding has increased from less than €1 million of public funding in 2008 to about €10 million of mostly corporate funding in 2022.
The Munich Security Conference was canceled three times: in 1965 when it was scheduled from the end of the year to the beginning of the following year, in 1991 due to the First Gulf War, and in 1997 as a result of the retirement of von Kleist. 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, South Korea and the People's Republic of China, and now includes leaders of the whole world.
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, South Korea 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 transatlantic 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 2003 At the 39th conference in 2003, German Minister for Foreign Affairs Joschka Fischer doubted the reasoning of the U.S. government for a war against Iraq with the words "Excuse me, I am not convinced".
2007 See 2007 Munich speech of Vladimir Putin.
2009 From 6–8 February 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 French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. US Vice President Joe Biden was also in attendance.
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.
2011 The 47th Munich Security Conference was held from 4 to 6 February 2011 and 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 was excluded from the circle of attendees because of the country's human rights situation.
In 2011, two special features marked the growing role of the Munich Security Conference as a centre 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, the New START Treaty (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) entered into force when Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton exchanged the instruments of ratification.
2012
The 48th Munich Security Conference was held from 2 to 5 February 2012.
2013
The 49th Munich Security Conference was held from 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.
2014
The 50th Munich Security Conference was held from 31 January to 2 February 2014. The conference focused on Euromaidan, new security risks, loss of importance for Europe, the NSA spying affair and political normalization in former Yugoslavia, as well as the Middle east, and Iran's nuclear program.
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 Russo-Ukrainian War, nuclear negotiations with Iran and the war on terror as well as the global refugees crisis.
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 ISIS, the situation in the Middle East, the future of NATO, the North Korean nuclear program, intelligence services, the 2016 Ewald von Kleist Award, the situation in Africa as well as the ongoing refugee crisis.
2017
The 53rd Munich Security Conference (MSC 2017) took place from 17 to 19 February 2017 at Hotel Bayerischer Hof 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, U.S. 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, NATO and the West, China's foreign policy, global health risks, the fight against terrorism, the Middle East and Iran as well as the US foreign policy towards Russia.
2018
The 54th Munich Security Conference (MSC 2018) took place from 16 to 18 February 2018 at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof in Munich.
2019
The 55th Munich Security Conference (MSC 2019) 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.
2020 The 56th Munich Security Conference (MSC 2020) took place from 14 to 16 February 2020 at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof in Munich. Among the more than 500 participants were heads of state and government from 35 countries. Joe Biden, later the 46th President of the United States, committed himself to a new tone from Washington on the political world stage and regarding multilateralism. He promised: "We will be back."
2021 The 57th Munich Security Conference ("Munich Special Edition 2021") took place on 19 February in the form of a virtual online conference, without in-person attendance, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The event was addressed by British PM Boris Johnson, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and US President Joe Biden, who declared that "America is back".
2022