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Institutional challenges
Although the European Economic Community (EEC) got off to a good start, the Europe of the Six was soon shaken by serious internal crises. The causes lay both in General de Gaulle’s determination to alter the Community’s objectives by keeping any development towards supranational authority to a minimum, and in the financial and institutional problems inherent in a multinational organisation built on compromises. It proved necessary to change the focus of the institutions in order to break the deadlock.