08:47 GMT
Lyse Doucet
Chief international correspondent
It’s hailed as “the transatlantic partnership.” Wolfgang Ischinger has seen its highs and lows up close as the German diplomat who chaired the Munich Security Conference for 14 years.
And this year it’s at its lowest.
“The biggest worry is what we’ve been trying to build for decades – a rules-based, institutions-based international system – is more or less shattered,” he tells me as the annual Munich Security Conference begins under the shadow of President Trump’s sudden unilateral intervention to end the war in Ukraine.
“The good news is what we’ve all wanted, discussions about how to end this war, have started” says Ischinger, who is now the President of the Munich Security Conference Foundation.
“But there is a lot of worry here in Europe,” he says, reflecting the chorus of criticism from European leaders which is certain to be amplified here in Munich.
Describing himself as an optimist, he emphasises “hopefully we can see at the end of this weekend an agreed path, not a unilateral path by President Trump with President Putin”.
He speaks of the need to avoid a “huge transatlantic crisis of mutual mistrust” with an outcome “that will reinforce the awareness on both sides of the Atlantic that we need each other”.
That’s a huge challenge but with so much at stake for Europe, the mood in Munich is the urgent need to do everything possible to resolve this deepening crisis.