The Ministerial Meeting — A First Dramatic Encounter

Abstract

The scene was thus set for the first highly dramatic encounter in Brussels. If de Gaulle had thought solely of giving a – sincere – warning to his EEC partners in Brussels, the following events must have been bewildering to him. His representatives, themselves quite unaware of what was on his mind, were soon isolated and cornered by the other negotiators. Incapable of making a move or even of saving face they were subjected to a continuous flow of proposals by the other six. These in turn became more antagonistic as the day wore on. As we will see, the situation certainly got out of control for de Gaulle. But, assuming the governments of the Five still believed, like the Germans, in a possibility of salvaging something of the negotiations, the behaviour of the delegates in Brussels does not seem to have been completely under the control of their ministries and governments back home. In any case, this action merely infuriated the French and rallied them behind the General’s course.