French President Emmanuel Macron addressed a security conference in the Slovak capital Bratislava less than a year ago with an apology to Eastern Europe: "We did not always hear the voices you brought,” he said. "That time is over.”
Yet a row over how to replenish Ukraine’s critically low stocks of artillery shells — and where those supplies should be procured — is turning into a deeper rift in Europe, with east blaming west for failing to listen.
The mood in diplomatic circles is that, should Russia ultimately win its war in Ukraine, Western Europe will not be forgiven and the whole European integration project since the fall of the Berlin Wall could be jeopardized as that rift becomes an indelible scar.