Free Speech Part 3
One year after Vice President Vance takes Europe to task over free speech, Germany's head of government Chancellor Friedrich Merz replies
On Friday 13th 2026, Germany’s Prime Minister (“Federal Chancellor”) Friedrich Merz delivered a 32-minute speech at the Munich Security Conference (MSC). Out of the half hour, Germany’s mainstream media picked one sentence for broadcasting that I found remarkable. At the 2025 MSC, U.S. Vice-President J.D. Vance had lamented that free speech was at risk in Europe. After first making clear that he was directly replying to the Vice-President, Merz stated:
“Here with us, free speech ends (ends = has its limits) when such speech is directed against human dignity and the (German) Constitution”.
This statement deserves scrutiny. To begin with, when J.D. Vance made his statements about free speech in Europe in 2025, European mainstream elites rejected his remarks out of hand or ridiculed them. A year later, Mr. Merz has changed tack. He no longer disputes the American Vice-President’s observations; he justifies them with a different tradition of free speech on the opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean. The German government admits to taking a more restrictive approach to freedom of expression than the American government! Merz also implies that, in this context, for “German”, you can read “European”, which is not correct. However, for the purpose of this article, I will compare American and German legislations.
The German Chancellor is right in so far as protection of speech in America and Germany work through different mechanisms. In the American Constitution, freedom of speech is enshrined in the First Amendment, which stipulates that:
“Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…”
In the German Constitution, it is Article 5 that guarantees freedom of speech and of the press. Paragraph 2 of Article 5, however, stipulates that:
“These rights shall find their limits in the provisions of general laws, in provisions for the protection of young persons and in the right to personal honour.”
Whereas the First Amendment explicitly forbids Congress from legislating limits to the freedom of speech, in Germany, Article 5 states clearly that “general laws” provide for limits to free speech. Only “protection of young persons” and “personal honour” are specifically mentioned as justifications for limits to free speech, but other reasons to curtail expression of opinion may obviously also be legal.
This does not mean that you can get away with saying anything in the United States. Any libeled, slandered or otherwise injured party can seek redress through the courts and damages frequently awarded in America are the most painful in the world. Concerns for national security easily trump free speech under American Law, and the authorities and courts in America will defend these concerns far mor vigorously than is imaginable in Germany. Incitement to violating a person’s human rights is a felony.
So, what does Merz have in mind? His language is fuzzy; one might say unbecoming to a fully qualified lawyer and former judge. The German Chancellor appears to have filed hundreds of criminal complaints with prosecutors all over the country for violations of Article 188 of the German penal code. At this point, a short introduction to German law is required. German law sanctions libel and slander (Articles 186 and 187 of the penal code) just like Anglo-Saxon law does, however, there is also “Beleidigung”, Article 185 of the penal code. “Beleidigung” translates into “insult committed with intent to demean”. This is not generally a crime in the United States, even though you may tread on thin ice exercising your respective “right to insult”. But in Germany, expressing your opinion that the Federal Chancellor’s cerebral fitness leaves a lot to be desired given his responsibilities, will land you in jail if the court concludes that you said that in order to “demean” him. And, for good measure, Article 185 has a big brother in Article 188 that stipulates that you get incarcerated for an extra year if the injured party is a “person of public interest”, which the head of government obviously is. So, Mr. Merz has made liberal use of particular facets of German law to considerably inconvenience members of the public who were rude to him. None appear to have gone to prison. It has not cost him a penny. It is highly likely that he could have brought suits against all his verbal assailants if it had happened in America, but at very high legal cost for him personally.
In conclusion, protection of Free Speech in Germany, probably in Europe, is not as iron-clad as it is in the United States. Germany’s head of government, Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz, has made it very clear, in words and in deeds, that he sees it that way and he likes it that way.
For now, there is no reason why Europe and America should not be able to discuss their different approaches to the protection of free speech with mutual respect. But if Europeans value Free Speech, they should stay alert and ready to defend it from powerful actors who treasure it rather less.