1 of 1 Jacques Delors in October 1994 Photo: Nathalie Koulischer/Portal Jacques Delors in October 1994 Photo: Nathalie Koulischer/Portal
Former President of the European Commission Jacques Delors, one of the founders of the European Union's historic single currency project, died this Wednesday at the age of 98.
Delors, an ardent supporter of postwar European integration, served three terms as president of the European Commission, the European Union's executive arm, from January 1985 to the end of 1994 longer than any other incumbent.
During Delors' dynamic decade as Commission head, the European Union completed its integrated single market and agreed to introduce a single currency and establish a common foreign and security policy.
Under his supervision, the then twelvemember bloc also set the conditions for finally absorbing the former communist states of Central and Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
His daughter Martine Aubry, socialist mayor of the French city of Lille, told AFP that her father died in his sleep at his home in Paris.
French President Emmanuel Macron praised his compatriot as an “inexhaustible architect of our Europe” and fighter for human justice.
Michel Barnier, the European Union's chief negotiator on the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union, said Delors had been an inspiration and a reason to “believe in a 'certain idea' of politics, France and Europe.”
Delors, a staunch federalist, was a passionate advocate of “ever closer union” who, as head of the European Union's executive branch, often came into conflict with then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who vigorously opposed any transfer of power to Brussels.