Group 4: French Hegemony, De Gaulle, and Sovereignty Crises (1956–1966)

Suez Canal Crisis

In October and November 1956, France, Great Britain, and Israel launched a joint military attack to take back the nationalized Suez Canal in Egypt. The mission ended in embarrassing failure when U.S. President Eisenhower and the Soviet Union forced an immediate, complete withdrawal. The crisis clearly showed how much British and French global power had faded after World War II, as well as their heavy dependence on the United States. For France, the humiliation proved that individual European countries could no longer act as independent superpowers on the world stage without a united Europe backing them up. This geopolitical shock provided major motivation in Paris to negotiate and sign the Treaties of Rome in March 1957. Within the course themes, the Suez Crisis was a key trigger that pushed European leaders to speed up economic integration to rebuild their influence globally.

Empty Chair Crisis

From July 1965 to January 1966, French President Charles de Gaulle started the Empty Chair Crisis by pulling French representatives out of all European Community meetings in Brussels. De Gaulle boycotted Community institutions to protest Commission President Walter Hallstein’s plans to increase the Commission's budget power and strengthen the European Parliament. He was also completely against introducing Qualified Majority Voting in the Council, which would allow other countries to outvote France on policy decisions. By freezing decision-making, de Gaulle paralyzed the EEC for six months to protect French national control against centralizing power in Brussels. In class terms, this crisis showed de Gaulle's aggressive defense of national sovereignty, proving that individual member governments remained the true bosses of the integration process. It forced a major halt to the growth of supranational authority in early European governance.

Luxembourg Compromise

Agreed upon in January 1966 in Luxembourg, this informal political deal resolved the Empty Chair Crisis and brought France back to the meeting table. The agreement stated that whenever "very important national interests" were at stake for any member state, the Council of Ministers would try to reach a unanimous decision instead of using majority voting. Even though it was never written into the official treaties, this agreement gave every member country an informal national veto over European laws. The compromise effectively held back the supranational ambitions of the European Commission for two decades. In our course framework, the Luxembourg Compromise represents a major win for state-centered intergovernmentalism, making sure that big decisions require full agreement among sovereign national governments. It protected national veto power as a central rule of European decision-making until the late 1980s.

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