France Boycotting W.E.U. Meeting

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32007, 6 June 1969, Page 10

France Boycotting W.E.U. Meeting

(N.Z.P.A .-Rauter—Copyright) THE HAGUE, June 5. Foreign Ministers of the Western European Union (W.E.U.) will open a twoday meeting in The Hague today, with France maintaining a boycott inherited from President de Gaulle. It will be the first time in the 15-year history of the seven-nation council, which links Britain with the Common Market Six, that any member State has refused to attend its quarterly ministerial session. General de Gaulle ordered a French boycott of council activity in Britain after the British-French row over pro-

cedure for convening W.E.U. permanent council meetings in London. Britain and the other Com-

mon Market five hope that France will return to the W.E.U. council fold once the French Presidential election is over on June 15. The Ministerial Council will today concentrate on international political developments, especially East-West relations, Middle East tension and aspects of the Nigeria situation.

The ministers are also expected to discuss the question of whether Greece should be suspended from the 18nation Council of Europe, to which all the W.E.U. nations

belong. But a decision on the relations of the Athens militarybacked Government with the Council of Europe is being left over for the council's Ministerial Committee meeting in Paris next December.