There are moments when history turns upside down and an entire continent changes: the Russian invasion of Ukraine a year ago, the war, is one of these moments. According to essayist Luuk van Middelaar, it is a date comparable to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Eastern bloc. “A bit 1989,” describes Van Middelaar. And like 1989, the events of 2022 and 2023 are shaking one of the foundations of the European Union (EU): Franco-German friendship.
The war in Ukraine had two effects on France and Germany, countries that faced each other in three wars between 1870 and 1945 and whose later reconciliation fostered European integration and post-war peace. The first effect was to shift the EU’s center of gravity towards the east of the continent. Countries like Poland and the Baltic States have been warning for years about the danger that Vladimir Putin’s Russia poses to a France and a Germany that compromise with the Russian president. Time has proven the former right.
For Marc Bassets
In the picture of Christophe Petit Tesson (Efe)Emmanuel Macron (left) and Olaf Scholz, in Paris on January 22.
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