"The importance of the CAP to de Gaulle cannot be overestimated. At a critical cabinet meeting in August 1962, he called the stabilization of agriculture the "most important problem" facing France after the Algerian civil war. If the problems are not resolved, he declared, "we will have another Algeria on our own soil." By 1961...the CAP became the main focus of French EEC policy, dominating bilateral and multilateral meetings among ministers and heads of government."