At the 250th meeting of the Council of Western European Union (WEU), held at ministerial level on 16 April 1964 in Brussels, the delegations discuss the development of East–West relations. British Foreign Secretary Richard Austen Butler and his French counterpart Michel Habib-Deloncle stress the fact that the USSR is currently preoccupied with internal problems and the Sino-Soviet dispute, which is not just affecting the Soviet satellite countries but the global communist movement as a whole. France and the United Kingdom are prepared to maintain a dialogue with the USSR but they emphasise the fact that Western Europe must remain vigilant towards the Soviet Union. On the matter of disarmament, the Soviet Union is not contributing any constructive ideas and it does not seem to be prepared to examine the substance of the issue of arms control.