Jacques Delors is a former European Commission President and was the founding father of the European Union’s historic single currency project, which eventually gave birth to the currency ‘Euro.’, He died on Wednesday, at the age of 98. His daughter, Martine Aubry, the socialist mayor of Lille, confirmed to the media that her father died in his sleep at his home in Paris.
Post-war, when the continent of Europe was undergoing several economic challenges, Delors emerged as an ardent advocate of post-war European integration. He saw European integration as a solution to lighten the burden on the struggling European economies. Along with this, he was also a staunch socialist and deeply cared for the upliftment of society as a whole.
Jacques Delors role as the European Commission President:
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Jacques Delors was the eighth president of the European Commission and served for three terms from 1985 to 1995, the longest term anyone ever held. This French socialist, before becoming the President of the European Commission, served as the Finance Minister of France when François Mitterrand became president in 1981.
His tenure as Minister of Finance became a daily battle to control public debt and inflation in postwar France. Along with this, his attempts to fulfil Mitterrand’s campaign promises were constantly hampered by the weak French currency, ‘franc’ and the continuous threat of devaluation. He was later offered the role of prime minister by Mitterrand. However, he declined and instead took up the role of president of the European Commission in Brussels.
In his first speech in the European Parliament as the new President, Delors claimed that European integration was not a mere political concept but an idea that could change the fate of Europe. He strongly pushed this idea, as he believed that it would guarantee peace across the continent.
As the new leader of the European Commission, which was back then known as the European Community, Delors faced enormous challenges that included the end of the Cold War, German reunification, and war in the former Yugoslavia. Along with this, the membership of the organisation was also expanding fast at that time. New countries like Portugal, Spain, Austria, Finland, and Sweden were all joining the European Commission one after another in hopes of the better economic scenario that had been promised by Delors.
Jacques Delors role as the Father of the European Union’s historic single currency project:
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After taking office in 1985, Delors’ first four-year term as president in Brussels saw an acceleration in the plans for the formation of a single European market that would be free from barriers to the movement of goods, labour, and investment.
This idea was not new and existed since the 1957 Treaty of Rome. However, Delors’s persistent advocacy of this idea, along with an economic recovery in Europe and a new budgetary framework, popularised the vision of a single European market.
In 1987, the Single European Act and its committed member states agreed to end all internal trade barriers by 1993. This ensured a second term for Delors as president of the European Commission. It was during this time that he tirelessly worked to get all the member states of the European Commission to agree upon the “Maastricht Treaty,” which ensured the creation of both the ‘euro’ and the modern European Union.
He was convinced that Europe had to create a strong economic union, which would be ‘a market without borders’, in order to compete with the United States and Japan. In 1988, Delors had already predicted that within a decade, the EC would be able to make about 80% of the economic and social decisions for a member nation. He was also determined to make sure that this single market in Europe would not be an unconstrained capitalist one like the one that existed in the United States. He was determined that the European single market would have a strong social dimension and wanted to ensure a powerful central government to supervise it.
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Many countries and their leaders on the continent embraced his ideas, but only Mrs. Thatcher used to call them absurd. Thatcher had described the 1989 Delors report calling for economic and monetary union as unacceptable, as she believed it would take away power to take economic decisions from the hands of the British Parliament. Lord Clarke of Nottingham, who, as Kenneth Clarke, had served under Thatcher in her cabinet, told BBC Radio that she used to share Delors’ vision of a single European market. However, she suspected that Delors wanted a political union, which she was against.
In February 1992, Delors finally saw the Maastricht Treaty being signed. However, it did not complete his vision of a single, fully integrated Europe. Back then, the new UK Prime Minister, John Major, had negotiated for an “opt-out” from the social dimension of the agreement as he had no intention of joining the single currency. However, Delors could inherit a loose confederation of member states, which, within a decade, turned into something that he always had a vision about. Delors had also recognised the downside of the ‘Maastricht Treaty’, which was a renewed debate between nations that wanted further integration and those that did not.
After leaving office in 1994, Jacques Delors made the decision not to run as a Socialist Party candidate for the French presidency. Polls at that time suggested that he might win, but he still declined this position. Out of office, he chose to rather become the president of the College of Europe in Bruges, through which he continued to influence the development of the EU.
How did the other world leaders remember Jacques Delors?
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When the news of Delors passing came, several European leaders remembered and honoured him for the work he had done for Europe.
The French President, Emmanuel Macron, praised Delors and called him a statesman with a French destiny and also an inexhaustible craftsman of Europe”. He further said in a statement that his commitment, his ideals, and his righteousness would always be an inspiration to millions. He saluted his work and his memory and would want to share the pain of his loved ones during this time.
The present European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said that he was “a visionary who made our Europe stronger.” Michel Barnier, who served as the European Union’s chief negotiator during Britain’s exit from the EU, said that Delors had been an inspiration and a reason to believe that a ‘certain idea’ of the politics of France and of Europe could exist.
