At first glance it seemed that the differing approaches adopted by Labour and the SD in the closing weeks of 1967, and developed further during the course of 1968, would endure unabated well into 1969. The Nordek negotiations that had continued fitfully throughout the previous 12 months had after all reached a stage where agreement on almost all issues bar agriculture, fishing and the precise institutional structure of the new organisation had been reached. Presenting their report to ministers on 3 January, the committee of government experts – the group tasked with exploring the scope and actually negotiating the intricacies of a Nordic economic union – could therefore declare with zeal that a draft Nordek treaty would be prepared by the summer, and that a finalised treaty would be ready to sign within a year. SD enthusiasm for a new Nordic community became only more entrenched against this backdrop. Krag more than ever believed that the plan would strengthen the Nordic countries’ negotiating position vis-à-vis the Community. And the SD leader was equally aware of its importance in bringing along those within the party sceptical of Denmark entering an enlarged EEC. Nordek in this sense remained vital not only to the future of Danish European policy but also to the unity and stability of the SD itself.

For Labour, meanwhile, French determination to block British entry appeared no less resolute in January 1969 than before. It was true certainly that towards the end of 1968 the Five had shown a renewed determination to champion British entry, with the Germans continuing their balancing act by leading efforts to seek a resolution for the applicants but doing so outside the confines of the EEC so as to avoid antagonising the French. But this merely demonstrated the very little substantive progress made by Britain towards actually joining the Six. As Michael Stewart, back once again as foreign secretary, put it in his diary, ‘none of the difficult problems seem any nearer solution’. The so-called Soames affair of February 1969 was the latest sign that the animosity that had characterised so much of Britain's relationship with France was alive and well.