European Union leaders reached a broad agreement Thursday in a Belgian castle to restructure the 27-nation bloc’s economy as they face antagonism from Trump, strong-China and Russia.

"In the era of great power rivalry, even the United States will not be powerful enough to go it alone," German leader Friedrich Merz told world leaders at the Munich Security Conference.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has no hard feelings that he was swiped away by calling luge gold medallist Max Langenhan at the Winter Olympics when he tried to congratulate him. "That is quite a story but I took it with a lot of humour.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz discussed efforts to end the war in Ukraine on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on Friday. Rubio praised

Germany’s Friedrich Merz quipped to Sir Keir Starmer “I hope you don’t mind about the European flag” as they posed for the cameras in front of a row of flags ahead of their meeting with France’s Emmanuel Macron.

European leaders braced for a combative Munich Security Conference on Friday, with Germany’s Friedrich Merz noting starkly that the international world order “no longer exists” – one of the few points of agreement between the fractious allies in the transatlantic alliance.