The 'percentages agreement' was an agreement between
Josef Stalin and
Winston Churchill about how to divide Europe in
spheres of influences.
October 9 1944 the two leaders met in
Moscow and Churchill suggested that the
Soviet Union should have 90 percent influence in
Romania and 75 percent in
Bulgaria;
Great Britain should have 90 percent in
Greece; in
Hungary and
Yugoslavia, Churchill suggested that they should have 50 percent each. Churchill wrote it on a piece of paper which he pushed across to Stalin, who ticked it off and passed it back.
"Might it not be thought rather cynical if it seemed we had disposed of these issues so fateful to millions of people, in such an offhand manner? Let us burn the paper," said Churchill.
"No, you keep it", said Stalin.
The two foreign ministers
Anthony Eden and
Molotov negotiated about the precentage shares on October 10 and 11. The upshot of these discussions was that the percentages of Soviet influence in Bulgaria and, more significantly, Hungary were amended to 80 percent.
Stalin kept to his promise in Greece; the Soviet Union did not assist the communist partisans in the
civil war, whereas Great Britain supported the Greece government forces.
References
★ Geoffrey Roberts,
Beware Greek Gifts: The Churchill-Stalin «Percentages» Agreement of October 1944