Emmanuel Macron is expected this Tuesday at the end of the day in Romania, before winning Moldova, Wednesday June 15. In the context of the war in Ukraine, the French president is visiting these two countries, which are particularly exposed. He will first go to a base where French and Belgian units are deployed under NATO’s integrated command.
The Mihail-Kogalniceanu base near Constanţa, the largest port on the Black Sea, hosts 800 soldiers, including 500 French, from the “spearhead” battalion of NATO’s rapid reaction force. The workforce will increase to 1,000 men by the end of the year. Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, NATO’s eastern flank has grown stronger.
Emmanuel Macron, who will be received by the Romanian Prime Minister, will meet with the French and Belgian detachments, before having dinner on the base. The next day, he will review the troops alongside his counterpart, Klaus Iohannis, before a bilateral meeting where the two presidents will discuss the war in Ukraine, the applications for EU membership of Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova which will be studied at the European Council next week or even the creation of a new structure proposed by Emmanuel Macron, the project for a European political community, which is meeting with reluctance from the Twenty-Seven.
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Suspense about a possible visit to Ukraine
The French Head of State will then go to Moldova, another country destabilized by the war in Ukraine. He will meet pro-European President Maia Sandu. The opportunity to express its support for this small country, one of the poorest in Europe, which hosts nearly 100,000 Ukrainian refugees.
Will Emmanuel Macron take advantage of this trip to visit Ukraine? The Élysée maintains the suspense and confines itself to saying that ” several options are under consideration “.
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