Delors, Jacques Lucien Jean

Delors, Jacques Lucien Jean (1925- ), French statesman and President of the European Commission (1985-1994), the executive body of the European Union. Born in Paris, Delors joined the Banque de France in 1945, later studying economics at the Sorbonne. In 1962 he moved from the Banque de France to the General Planning Commission of the French government, and served as an adviser to the prime minister (1969-1972). In 1974 Delors joined the French Socialist Party, becoming its leading authority on macroeconomics and international trade, and was elected to the European Parliament of the then European Community in 1986. In 1981 President François Mitterrand made him Economics and Finance Minister. He gradually moved policy away from the government’s initial socialist priorities, ending France’s economic recession.

Delors became President of the European Commission in 1985. Revitalizing the process of European integration, he led the drive for a single market within Europe, codifying the removal of frontier controls and other internal barriers to trade in the Single European Act, which came into force in 1987. In 1989 he oversaw the issuing of the so-called Delors Report, which provided a detailed plan for European economic and monetary union (EMU). This Delors plan was broadly adopted in the Treaty of Maastricht on European Union signed by all 12 members of the then European Community (EC) in 1992, which became the foundation of the European Union.

Delors stepped down as President of the European Commission in 1994. He later decided not to stand as Socialist candidate for the French presidential elections in 1995. In the spring of 1997 he became head of the Notre Europe (Our Europe) foundation, a Paris-based pro-European pressure group funded by the European Union.