Munich Conference for Security Policy 2007

The 43rd Munich Conference for Security Policy is going to be held this weekend at the Bayerischer Hof (09-11 February) in central Munich.

Since the 1960s, this conference has attracted politicians, diplomats and experts from around the globe to discuss issues relating to European and global security. This year over 250 participants from 40 countries will gather in Munich: guests include Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and the new US Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates. The key topic of the conference is 'Global Crisis and Global Responsibility'.

The conference generally causes some disruption in Munich, including traffic snarls, increased police presence and/or blockades in the city center and associated protests. I work in the immediate area of the Bayerischer Hof and will be bringing my passport along to work with me on Friday, as there is a good chance of being stopped by the police and asked for ID.

For more info, see the previous years' topics.

• Munich Security Conference 2006
• Munich Security Conference 2005

Hi, yep the usual misery has already started for us working around bayerstrasse. No parking on the streets around the dorint sofitel as the US defense secretery stays there. As of friday don't even think of going past there. Why oh why he cant just sit in airforceone and come in by car is beyond me. Although when the pope visited the whole A9 motorway was shut down. Not only around where i work but also where i live is being cleared of parked traffic because all the cops need somewhere to park their little tanks..Oh and no sleep either as there will be the continuous buzz of helicopters from thursday until sunday.

yes i dread this time of year. isnt it about time that they started holding such meetings "out of towns". look at the G8 misery and what about when bush visited germany two years ago..the students were locked in their classes... all in the name of democracy...

when i think of last year's conference, i remember the fit police men in the riot gear. sorry for being so simple.

That sentence needs a wee trim:


Much better.

This will cause problems to tram and bus : for more details, see here

If the NATO security conference is meant to be here in Muc, then why are the NAto ministers all in Valencia today and tmw? And i thought we had it bad here..Spain has removed itself from Schengen for the duration of the conference...anybody traveling to spain must have a passport and, if you are from certain dodgy countries, a visa to boot.

Horst Teltschik, the organizer of the Conference and Helmut Kohl's former Vice Chief-of-Staff, said yesterday in an interview: "The tragedy of a democracy is that everyone can voice his opinion in public and that the politically responsible have to be protected in a democracy. This would not happen in a dictatorship."


He is currently being bashed by all parties from CSU (slap on the wrist, you have to understand the pressure he is under, especially from extreme leftists!) to SPD (Impossible!) and Greens: "His praise of dictatorship shows his inner attitude.", "The organizer of a conference meant to further democracy and stability in the world must be expected to respect freedom of speech as a democratic acheivement."
Teltschik himself said he "made a mistake" and his statement has been "misinterpreted". But he is still blaming the demonstrators for making use of their right to state their opinions. If the demonstrations were non-violent the police action would not be necessary. "They create a commotion", he says.
"Indeed, I do think it tragic that a democracy with freedom of speech and congregation anchored in its constitution has to protect the Security Conference and the politicians with massive police presence."


Oberknut ©

Yeah, sure, everyone should be free to express their opinion ... just as long as it's the correct one.

Unbelievable stupidity.

They're handing out flyers around Marienplatz about an anti-Munich Security Conference demonstration. I neglected to take one so can't fill you in on the details.

Even my CSU-voting co-worker is shocked, and she knows him personally.

hmm, maybe i don't understand it but i think he was trying to say that it is funny that in a democracy, a conference about security has to be state protected which implies that no everybody is free to say what they want, right? he should have shut up after this and not mentioned the d-word.
i think is good that this conference takes place in munich. (as a former student of international politics i can only say that i wish i could attend. )

I read the guy's statements (in German, as quoted by Sarabyrd) a few times, to try to understand what he might have meant, but to say that "The tragedy of a democracy is that everyone can voice his opinion in public" ("Es ist die Tragik jeder Demokratie, dass bei uns jeder seine Meinung öffentlich vertreten darf") - well, he clearly fails spectacularly to grasp the most fundamental principle of democracy: that everyone should be free to express their opinion. Everyone - not just the ones whose opinion he happens to feel comfortable with.

EDIT: He can't even express himself clearly. He says "die Tragik jeder Demokratie" and then in the same breath "dass bei uns". Is this guy a German edition of Dubya?

Any time I've been in town during a global conference it has been a real riot.

"This is what democracy looks like!"

This thread is probably being monitored by the CIA/FBI. So, if I said "bomb", I wonder if they would arrest me. Being a scientist and all, they could easily charge me with bioterrorism and haul me off to Guantanamo.

And orange is so not your color!
Oh dear, I just realized that a whole bunch of female TTers are going to be around Marienplatz on Saturday (shopping, you really don't want to tag along). Well, if we don't turn up at the Hofbräuhaus later on you'll know why.
I hope they don't take our cameras off us, we are doing tourist things!

They're currently holding the demonstration against the Security Conference. Huge police presence!

I have just come back from the march, hundreds and hundreds of coppers, bit of a scuffle down at the Glockenbach. I saw a few punks and anarchists have a little push and shove with the police. The police tried to force a VW through the crowd. Generally good natured, I think the announcer said there were around 17,000 people on the protest.

We came across it by surprise, and it was disturbing how many police were there. Overkill would be putting it mildly. Anyway, I found the march itself very moving -- I always seem to get a big lump in my throat when I see democracy in action.

I saw the demo - was it really just a walk around Gaertnerplatz again and again or did they go elsewhere too?

If anyone's interested I have put a few photos from today on my website www.nickymitch.co.uk and then look on conference, its at the top next to blog.

It finishes today. We survived.

Faschings Dienstag will be worse.

IMHO

FF

Thanks for the photos nickyboy, after protesting in the past i decided to bow down to what true democracy is and bog off out of munich saturday morning. i've become apathetic (or old). But before i did leave Muc, i was shopping around gartnerplatz and i asked the shopkeepers their opinions of the security measures and they said they were well and truly pissed off with the same thing year in year out and wasn't it about time that they moved the conference out of town. I couldnt agree more. Listening to the radio on my way out it seemes that the motoway to the airport was closed to allow the big wigs into town... Perhaps next year we local residents should hold a march a week before to protest at the policing policy..