The negotiations on the common agricultural market policy were initially concerned with the Common Market Organisation (CMO) for cereals. The main issue was to agree on setting the common prices, as these varied greatly from country to country before the European Community was founded. The final agreement was reached by fixing prices at a particularly high level. This decision had a domino effect on the CMO for agricultural products that are used as an alternative to cereals for land utilisation (e.g. industrial crops or sugar beet) or that use cereals for animal feed (e.g. beef, milk). Their prices were also set very high. As a result, the European Community quickly moved from shortages to production surpluses, the sale of which affects the cost of the CAP, the latter getting out of control. In the meantime, the prospect of strengthening the European project and extending common action to other policy areas disappeared with the “empty chair crisis” triggered by De Gaulle in 1965.