France Mourns Jacques Delors, Who Oversaw European Integration

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

PARIS/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – A national tribute was underway in France to remember late French statesman Jacques Delors, a devoted Christian who oversaw the European Union’s increasing economic integration and led the drive for a single currency, the euro.

Friday’s ceremony, held at the historic Hôtel des Invalides in Paris, comes more than a week after Delors, the former president of the European Union’s executive European Commission, died at the age of 98.

French President Emmanuel Macron said he would mourn him as an “inexhaustible craftsman of our Europe” and a “tutelary figure of the political scene for over 40 years.”

Among those attending will be Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whose country hasn’t adopted the euro currency and has been in conflict with the EU over his perceived weakening of democratic institutions.

Orbán has denied wrongdoing and says his country has been targeted due to his government defending Europe’s Judeo-Christian traditions and its anti-migration stance.

He also launched a controversial national consultation on Hungary’s sovereignty at the start of his rightwing Fidesz party’s European election campaign.

At Friday’s ceremony, Macron, Orbán, and others will remember Delors as a European visionary and pivotal figure in reanimating the pursuit of a united Europe after the Second World War.

HEADING COMMISSION

Delors, who headed the European Commission between 1985 and 1995, is seen as one of the most influential architects of a European internal market and single currency.

Delors is best known for presiding over the Single European Act of 1987, which set Europe toward borderless economic integration.

He was also instrumental in backing the Maastricht Treaty of 1993 that created the European Union and charted a path for countries to join the euro currency.

His efforts not only helped to shape the common market but also to promote social cohesion and European citizenship, French media commented.

Perhaps most significantly, in forging the concept of a united European democracy, the Maastricht Treaty also created EU citizens. They would take part in European Parliament (EP) elections.

Yet critics say the EP powers remain limited as legislators could not even vote on where to have their permanent seats, leading to sessions in Strasbourg, France, and Brussels, Belgium.

Born in Paris in 1925, Delors worked at the Banque de France until 1962.

COMMITTED CHRISTIAN

A committed Christian and active in the trade union confederation, he entered politics as a member of the Socialist Party in 1974 and was appointed as finance minister by President François Mitterrand in 1981.

Faced with a recession, he started off by delivering the traditional medicine of increased spending but ultimately convinced Mitterrand to greater alignment with market economics.

Delors’ death was confirmed last week by his daughter, Martine Aubry. “He died this morning at his home in Paris in his sleep,” said Aubry, herself the socialist mayor of the French city of Lille.

His current successor as European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, called Delors “a visionary who made our Europe stronger.”

The Jacques Delors Institute said his name would be associated with many of the most fundamental binding structures of the European project in addition to the single market and the euro: the Schengen passport-free travel area, enlargement, Erasmus student exchanges, and cohesion funds to help development in poorer countries.

French President Macron, who will lead his nation in mourning on Friday, called him a “Statesman of French destiny.”

He added that the “Inexhaustible craftsman of our Europe” was also a “Fighter for human justice. Jacques Delors was all of that. His commitment, his ideals, and his righteousness will always inspire us. I salute his work and his memory and share the pain of his loved ones.”

He survived his longtime wife and now leaves behind two children.

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