Jacques Delors

Jacques Lucien Jean Delors (20 July 1925 – 27 December 2023) was a French politician who served as president of the European Commission from 1985 to 1995. Delors played a key role in the creation of the single market, the euro and the modern European Union. As president of the European Commission (EC), Delors was the most visible and influential leader in European affairs. He implemented policies that closely linked the member nations together and promoted the need for unity. He created a single market that made the free movement of persons, capital, goods, and services within the European Economic Community (EEC) possible. He also headed the Delors Committee, which proposed the monetary union to create the euro, a new single currency to replace individual national currencies. This was achieved by the signing of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. Delors was a member of the French Socialist Party. Before becoming president of the EC, he was France's finance minister from 1981 to 1984, and a member of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1981. Born in Paris in a family originating from Corrèze, Delors first held in the 1940s through the 1960s a series of posts in French banking and st...