Chirac walks out on EU leaders as tensions mount

The first meeting of the European Council in Brussels on 23 March 2006 was overshadowed by the dispute over protectionism in the energy market. German Chancellor Angela Merkel gave a thinly veiled warning to France and Spain to open their energy markets and Ernest-Antoine Seillière, the French head of the UNICE employers' organisation made a plea for economic reform. Mr Seillière's speech was in English, which led to French President Jacques Chirac storming out of the meeting in protest.