Jacques Delors, who passed away on 27 December 2023, will be remembered as the greatest, most effective and most visionary, forward-looking President of the European Commission - and, like Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman long before him, a ‘founding father’ of a united Europe.

Before him, the President of the European Commission was little more than a Eurocrat; it was he who gave the role the same status, later recognised universally, as a head of state or government. During his ten-year term of office, from 1985 to 1995, and thanks to the support of German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and French President François Mitterrand, he drove the process of European integration forward forcefully and decisively. He began by immediately revitalising it with the aim of transforming the common market, based on the customs union, into a genuine single market by 1992. Then, while the single market was still being built, he launched his other major project - monetary union - while working on the enlargement of the Community’s competences with the founding of the European Union, via the Maastricht Treaty.

For the first time, he also addressed the Union’s ‘democratic deficit’, proposing and obtaining more powers for the European Parliament, first through the cooperation procedure (provided for by the Single European Act), and then (starting with the Maastricht reform) with co-decision, which finally gave the Strasbourg assembly a true co-legislator role in matters subject to qualified majority decisions in the Council.

The path towards the strategic objective of the single market began with two documents: the ‘cost of non-Europe’ report, which demonstrated the economic benefits of removing the remaining internal regulatory barriers, and a first ‘White Paper’, which identified all the legislative measures (around 200) needed to eliminate those barriers.

From the start, Delors identified the essential tool for completing the project and strengthening the decision-making mechanisms and the European institutions: he proposed, by means of the Single European Act, a first real reform of the 1957 Treaty of Rome, which had established the European Communities (Common Market and Euratom), and convinced the Member States to approve it (1987).

Delors then played an essential role in redefining the Community financial framework, with a significant increase in budgetary resources to 1.20% of the Member States’ total GDP with the Delors I Package (1988-92) followed by 1.27% with the Delors II Package (1993-99), and a substantial increase in funds for ‘economic and social cohesion’ (regional and structural policies), seen as a necessary counterpart to the unification of the internal market. Even more important, however, was the systemic change to the Community budget framework from annual to medium-term (7-year), starting from the two Delors ‘packages’.

This prevented lengthy financial negotiations between the Member States, which slowed down the work of the European institutions for months at a time, being repeated every year. Another key element introduced by Delors in European policies was the focus on the social dimension (it was he, among others, who initiated the ‘social dialogue’ between businesses, trade unions and European institutions). Nevertheless, his social programme, which also provided for the harmonisation of the instruments to protect workers in the event of a crisis and to counteract the pressure to relocate production activities, was one of his unfinished works.

His toughest defeat, however, concerned his second White Paper, on 'growth, employment and competitiveness’, launched in style in 1993 as the last major project of his mandate. It was a proposal to revitalise and boost the economy (to be financed with EUR 20 billion over 20 years), based on, among other things, a common debt issuance (EUR 8 billion per year) and contributions from the Community budget and loans from the European Investment Bank. The aim was to support the construction of transport and telecommunications infrastructure and a number of other economic and social initiatives (essentially foreshadowing what would follow more than 20 years later with ‘NextGenerationEU’ in response to the pandemic crisis).

The plan, initially welcomed by the European Council, was later criticised and abandoned by the EU's Finance Ministers. The end of Delors' decade followed a downward trajectory, as the tide turned and he was accused of extravagant ambition, centralised Jacobinism and excessive regulation. Some of his ideas would be revisited later, however - such as the Trans-European Networks and the ‘SURE’ programme, which supported temporary unemployment schemes during the COVID-19 crisis.

Jacques Delors has passed away after a long life of successful engagement that has had a lasting impact. He was directly involved in writing entire chapters of the European project as we know it: the single market, the Schengen area, the Erasmus programme, the euro and the Cohesion Fund. Behind the European achievements lies the ethics of action.

Mr Delors gave an air of nobility to public engagement. In his community work, his trade union activities and, later, his political action, the activist, as he humbly liked to define himself, was particularly inspired by Emmanuel Mounier’s thoughts on personalism. A quietly devout Christian, he saw each person as a unique individual who is part of a network of social ties that he knew had to be mobilised if any large-scale action were to be undertaken.

Concerned about the rise of individualism, the social democrat believed in engagement in society, where everyone does their bit for the common good. His name remains inextricably linked to consultation, co-management, collegiality and other forms of collective action, which he promoted and advocated. This is why he attached so much importance to the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, which he helped create. He respected intermediary bodies and believed in sincere social dialogue in the spirit of compromise.

He practised this at EU level, where he also extended this to dialogue with religions. Mr Delors was not a saviour figure. While being self-taught, he did not consider himself a self-made man but someone who had been shaped by and with others and through action. His way of thinking was constantly evolving based on feedback from action in a virtuous circle. Although he was a man of principles and convictions rooted in his strong faith, he was not a slave to blind ideology. By clearly seeing the realities, grasping situations and respecting national traditions, he was able to find the way forwards.

For him, reality took precedence over the idea, which he knew to pave the way for when circumstances demanded. As such, he knew to take up the idea of the single currency, while supporting German reunification from the outset, which had become inevitable after the fall of the Wall. Of course, the world and its current turmoil are no longer those of Mr Delors’ Europe. His achievements, like the internal market, must be adapted and added to in the face of threatening powers. But they provide the basis for action today. And his approach of incorporating and clearly seeing the realities, while adhering firmly to principles and remaining open to compromise in order to find a way forwards together, should be revived among European leaders.

Sébastien Maillard, special advisor and former director (2017-2023) of the Jacques Delors Institute