Former EU Commission president Jacques Delors dies at 98 | EUROtoday

Issued on: 27/12/2023 – 17:53Modified: 27/12/2023 – 18:33

1 min

Delors, who was 98, died in his sleep in his Paris dwelling on Wednesday, she mentioned.

Delors, a Socialist, had a high-profile political profession in France, the place he served as finance minister beneath president Francois Mitterrand from 1981 to 1984.

But he declined to run for president in 1995 regardless of being overwhelmingly forward within the polls, a choice he later put right down to “a desire for independence that was too great”.

He headed up the European Commission from 1985 to 1995, a decade that noticed main steps within the bloc’s integration.

These included the creation of the frequent market, the Schengen accords for journey, the Erasmus programme for pupil exchanges and the creation of the bloc’s single forex, the euro.

His drive for elevated integration met with resistance in some member nations, particularly Britain beneath prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

“Up Yours Delors” learn a well-known 1990 front-page headline in The Sun newspaper which voiced its considerations a couple of single forex and elevated powers for the European Parliament.

Delors later based suppose tanks with the goal of furthering European federalism, and lately warned of the risks of populism in Europe, additionally calling for “audacity” in coping with the Brexit fallout.

(AFP)