Europe’s ‘painful’ realisation it must be bolder with US set out in security report

Need for greater military autonomy also accepted, says report for Munich Security Conference, which takes place this week

Europe has come to the painful realisation that it needs to be more assertive and more militarily independent from an authoritarian US administration that no longer shares a commitment to liberal democratic norms and values, a report prepared by the Munich Security Conference asserts.

The report sets the scene for an all-out ideological confrontation with the Trump White House at the high-level annual meeting of security policy specialists, which starts on Friday.