(Finance) – It is died at the age of 98 the former president of the European Commission Jacques Delors, French politician and economist. His daughter Martine Aubry made this known to AFP. “He died this morning (today, ed.) in his house in Paris, in his sleep”, added the socialist mayor of Lille. Delors was considered among the fathers of the single market and the euro, still evolving in the almost 10 years he spent at the top of what would become the European Commission.
Born in Paris in 1925, after various positions in France, starting with those in the National Bank, he became involved in the international relations of the Socialist Party and landed a career in the nascent European institutions. Former Minister of Economy under Francois Mitterrand, 1981 to 1984, Jacques Delors he dashed the hopes of the left by refusing to run in the 1995 presidential electionswhen he was favored in the polls, with a spectacular defeat on television in front of 13 million viewers.
“I have no regrets”, but “I’m not saying I was right”, he declared to Le Point in 2021. From Brussels, where he remained at the helm of the Commission from 1985 to 1995, Jacques Delors outlined the contours of contemporary Europe: the creation of the single market, the signing of the Schengen agreements, the Single European Act, the launch of the Erasmus student exchange programme, the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy and the launch of the Economic and Monetary Union which will lead to the creation of the euro .
In March 2020, it invited EU heads of state and government to show greater solidarity at a time when they were discussing a common response to the Covid-19 pandemic. With his think tanks, the ‘Club temoin’ and ‘Notre Europe’ (later to become the ‘Institut Jacques-Delors’, with offices in Paris, Brussels and Berlin), he supported the strengthening of European federalism to the bitter end, calling for greater ‘ audacity’ in times of Brexit and attacks by ‘populists of all stripes’.
The French President, Emmanuel Macron, paid homage to the “inexhaustible craftsman of our Europe” who was the former president of the European Commission Jacques Delors, who died a short while ago. “His commitment, his ideal and his rectitude will always inspire us. I salute his work and his memory and I share the pain of his loved ones,” Macron wrote on ‘X’.
“With the death of Jacques Delors, the EU loses a giant. The last honorary citizen of Europe, he worked tirelessly, as president of the European Commission and member of the European Parliament, for a united Europe.” He writes it on X the president of the European Chamber, Roberta Metsola. “Generations of Europeans will continue to benefit from his legacy,” she adds.