The enlargement of the European Community (EC) and later the European Union (EU) was never particularly Indeed, the first attempt at widening the EU culminated in the Community’s “first real crisis” when Charles de Gaulle, then-President of France, rejected the British accession in a dramatic press conference at the E´ lyse´e Palace (Nicholson and East 1987, 39). He claimed that Britain’s conditions for joining the Union were unacceptable to France. In addition to fearing that a rise in Atlanticism would undermine French dominance in Europe, de Gaulle was particularly concerned about the impact British membership would have on the Common Agricultural Policies (CAP)
