On May 31, 2023, French President Emmanuel Macron gave a speech at GLOBSEC, a security conference organized by a think tank in the Slovak capital Bratislava, wherein he formalized his much-awaited opening to the East of Europe. Macron was once a proponent of rapprochement between Europe and Russia, much to the dismay of Central and Eastern Europeans, for whom NATO’s Article 5 security guarantee is existential.
