09 January 2024

Federal Trust/Guardian's Palmer: ‘What I want is a federalising Europe’: remembering Jacques Delors, a true EU champion

His commitment to a barrier-free EU single market – a goal he initially shared with Margaret Thatcher – was always predicated on it being run by the European Union, rather than by national governments.

At first glance, Jacques Delors did not readily fit the label of being some kind of radical, let alone “revolutionary”, figure. His public demeanour was always that of a reflective intellectual rather than a brash activist. But it was a label some French commentators attached to him when he was first appointed president of the European Commission in 1985.

After the postwar years, which led to the launch of the European Economic Community in 1957, most of the subsequent commission presidents proved to be worthy but utterly unmemorable “Eurocrats”. During my first years in Brussels, before Delors’s appointment, there was a widespread fear the initial momentum behind an ever more united Europe was melting away.

Delors’s pre-EU story – notably his strong commitment to the trade union movement and opposition to social inequality – perhaps reflected his support for the Radical Socialist party and the experience of the near revolutionary turbulence during the 1968 crisis, when French workers occupied their factories. When he later addressed the annual TUC conference, appealing to British workers to join the battle for social justice in the EU, he reminded them that “your European comrades await you”. This was greeted with stormy applause and, perhaps inevitably, an enthusiastic rendering of the French children’s ballad, Frère Jacques.

His commitment to a barrier-free EU single market – a goal he initially shared with Margaret Thatcher – was always predicated on it being run by the European Union, rather than by national governments. He saw the single market as part of a wider “economic and social partnership” at EU level and a step to a single currency. He secured the passage of the single market with the active support of Lord Arthur Cockfield, a British Conservative commissioner. “Arthur has gone native,” was Mrs Thatcher’s outraged response.

In private discussions and press conferences, Delors always sought to speak with precision when talking about closer EU integration. Once, replying to a question of mine in French, he declared: “But I am not a federalist. What I want is a federalising Europe.” By this he meant a step-by-step process, rather than a preconceived end goal....

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