The Role of Charles de Gaulle in the European Affairs in the 1960s

When Charles de Gaulle returned to power in France in 1958, he did it with the desire to use European Economic Community (EEC) as a tool for achieving a number of long- standing objectives: to place France at the head of cultural developments in European civilization; to maintain allies for French defence; to develop the French economy in an European setting and to increase French power globally by carving out an European organization of nation states that would turn to France as its leader. De Gaulle made domestic financial reform and facilitated the implementation of the customs union, which he managed also to link to the realization of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). At the same time he endeavored to build an intergovernmental organization for foreign and security cooperation, so called Fouchet Plan, on the political foundation of the EES.1 This aspect of his attempts for integration really deserves congratulations, if we take a look on what nowadays is achieved in this part of his started transfers of power.
De Gaulle had also a big role of stalling European integration, if he thought it would endanger the power positions of France.…