Abstract: In order to avoid unnecessarily long withdrawal movements and to eliminate as rapidly as possible short-circuits upon contact of a countersinking electrode with the workpiece being worked in the electroerosion machine, whilst also adapting as flexibly as possible the path of the withdrawal movement to the geometry of the workpiece to be eroded and the path eroded therein, the withdrawal movement of the countersinking electrode during a short-circuit is controlled so that in the presence of a short-circuit the countersinking electrode is initially moved back by a predetermined distance along the previously covered or eroded path from a short-circuit point to an intermediate point and then the electrode is moved away from the intermediate point over the given withdrawal path if there is still a short-circuit on reaching the intermediate point.