Valdai Club

The growth of the foreign policy activity of Emmanuel Macron finds other major EU players in their regrouping stage, write Valdai Club experts Irina Bolgova and Igor Istomin. While London, Berlin, and Brussels are focused on finding answers to domestic challenges, additional space is being freed for Paris to claim leadership. The problem is that French initiatives are poorly designed and poorly prepared diplomatically. Biting statements often take partners by surprise, but this does not increase their chances of implementation.

Ever since the Alliance was formed, its image has been subject to many distortions and contradictions. Some of these myths originate from NATO itself as it claimed to deliver security and stability not only to its members but also globally. In reality though, it is above all an instrument for furthering various and sometimes competing interests of its participants in military and political domains.

On November 24, 2017, the fifth summit of the Eastern Partnership kicks off in Brussels. For the first time since the programme began in 2009, the summit will take place not in one of the Eastern European capitals, but in the capital of the united Europe, which is intended to emphasize consolidation and the high level of the EU’s attention to its eastern policy.