A united European continent against Russia: the family photo will be highly symbolic on Thursday in Moldova for the second summit of the European Political Community. But first, Emmanuel Macron will try to reassure Slovakia about France’s commitment to Russia.
Emmanuel Macron participates Wednesday, May 31 in the Globsec forum in Bratislava, Slovakia. He must there must deliver a speech on the security of the European continent, a first for a French president, a month before the NATO summit in Vilnius, on July 11-12, where political and military support for Ukraine must be reaffirmed.
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First objective for Emmanuel Macron, to remove the doubt on the full commitment of France alongside Ukraine. Long considered too soft, even ambiguous vis-à-vis the Kremlin, the French president will send “clear signals of long-term support” in kyiv, promises the Elysée. Because Central and Eastern Europe has taken badly its appeals not to humiliate Russia and it does not share its dream of European strategic autonomy. It only conceives of its security in the shadow of NATO. In response, Emmanuel Macron will recall the deployment of French forces in Estonia and Romania and above all reaffirm that, in the face of Putin, the unity of the European continent is imperative.
The shadow of Russia
In the Balkans, in Moldova, but also in EU Member States, such as Hungary or Bulgaria, war is destabilizing societies marked by Russian tropism – economic, energy, but also cultural and political. Wherever he can, Vladimir Putin rushes into the breach, blowing, for example, on the badly extinguished embers of ethnic nationalism in Kosovo where, for two days, the Serb minority has been confronting the Kosovar authorities and the peacekeeping force of the ‘NATO. Concrete consequence, in Bratislava, Emmanuel Macron will not meet as planned the Serbian president, who has canceled his visit to the Slovak capital.
Thursday, June 1, the French president will travel to Moldova for the 2nd summit of the European political community (EPC) which he initiated last year.
The CPE is this extended forum of the European Union (20 invited countries in addition to the 27 members of the bloc) which brings together very different profiles, Armenia, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, Serbia, Azerbaijan… A first meeting had taken place in October in Prague. The choice of Molavia, this small country of less than three million inhabitants, bordering Ukraine, is not insignificant. The family photo of some 47 Heads of State and Government together will have symbolic value, a few kilometers from the front line.