Jacques Delors, former European Commission president, dies aged 98
Jacques Delors, the former European Commission president considered a founding father of today’s EU, has died aged 98 at his home in Paris.
Delors, also a former French government minister, was a passionate advocate of postwar European integration and credited as the driving force behind the introduction of the euro, the EU’s single currency, and the creation of the bloc’s single market.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, was one of the first to pay tribute. “A statesman of French destiny. An inexhaustible architect of our Europe. A fighter for human justice,” he said in a statement.
“Jacques Delors was all these things. His commitment, his ideals and his uprightness will always inspire us. I salute his work and his memory and share the grief of his family.”
Delors served as an MEP in the European parliament between 1979 and 1981 and as a finance minister in François Mitterrand’s government from 1981 to 1984.
He was president of the European Commission for three terms from 1985 to the end of 1994 – longer than any other holder of the office – during which time he pushed for the introduction of the single market, which came into effect on 1 January 1993, and allowed for the free movement of people, capital, goods and services within what was the European Economic Community.
In Britain, Delors repeatedly clashed with the then British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. He became the chief bogeyman for British Eurosceptics – leading the Sun to run its 1990 front page headline: Up yours Delors, a taste of what was to come more than 25 years later during the Brexit campaign.
Recalling the exchanges with Thatcher, the former Labour leader Lord Kinnock told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme: “To represent him as some kind of fanatical federalist who wanted to create some country called Europe with all the trappings of that was extremely misleading, but it suited her political purpose at that time.
“And of course the caricature stuck. That wasn’t Jacques at all.”
Kinnock described Delors as a “very polite, calm, highly intelligent man, a problem-solver”, adding: “He wouldn’t let his judgment of what was possible, what was practical, what was doable be clouded by personal reservation or dislike.” Former prime minister Boris Johnson said Delors “was the pre-eminent architect of the modern European Union and whether you agreed or not with his vision he was a towering political figure.”
He added: “Without Delors there would have been no Maastricht treaty and no euro. Indeed, without Delors there would have been no single market.
“He harnessed post-Cold War anxieties about Germany to create a new federal structure for Europe and he did it with dazzling panache.
“His ideas were never right for Britain … but no one can doubt his legacy today.”
On the left, Delors, a member of the French Socialist party, is widely considered the president France should have had in 1995 when the right was tearing itself apart. The party tried to persuade him to stand and polls suggested he would have had a good chance of entering the Elysée.
Delors declined to run, and the Socialist candidate chosen to stand, Lionel Jospin, lost to the conservative Jacques Chirac.
Writing in Le Monde, political journalist Françoise Fressoz said Delors was “an authentic socialist, revolted by injustice, desiring to change the course of things”.
The EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, posted to social media: “Jacques Delors was for many of us, over and above political divisions, a source of inspiration and a reason to believe in a ‘certain idea’ of politics, of France and of Europe … he was a humanist who worked for the cooperation and solidarity between Europeans.”
The former French president François Hollande said Delors had “devoted his entire life” to public service.
“Jacques Delors was not a politician like others. His death will create strong emotions across Europe so much did he contribute to shaping it. It will remind us of an era during which a generation tirelessly pursued an ideal and ensured that it was translated into action and progress.”
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, wrote on X: “Jacques Delors was a visionary who made our Europe stronger.
“His life’s work is a united, dynamic and prosperous European Union. It has shaped entire generations of Europeans, including mine. Let us honor his legacy by constantly renewing our Europe.”
The European Council president, Charles Michel, described him as a “great Frenchman and a great European” who had “entered history as one of the builders of our Europe”.
Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank, said: “With the passing of Jacques Delors, Europe has lost a true statesman.
“His achievements were numerous, including leading the creation of Europe’s single market and the path he laid out towards our single currency, the euro. Rest in peace.”
Delors leaves a daughter, Martine Aubry, former first secretary of the Socialist party and the mayor of Lille in northern France since 2001.