Jacques Delors, architect of the modern EU and ‘Mr. Europe,’ dies aged 98

BRUSSELS — Jacques Delors, a Paris bank messenger’s son who became the visionary and builder of a more unified Europe in his momentous decade as chief executive of the European Union, has died in Paris, the Delors Institute think tank told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “The best results of European integration cannot be dissociated from the vision, the courage, the conviction, the perseverance and the relentless work which characterized Jacques Delors’ work during his 10 years at the head of the European Commission.” Paying tribute, the office of French President Emmanuel Macron said: “This grandson of farmers and the son of a bank employee, whose rise was entirely due to his talent, never allowed the lofty heights to corrupt his human righteousness.” Delors “became the builder of the EU as we know it today,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz wrote on X, formerly Twitter. In remarks that may ring as true today as when he left office, Delors in 1995 cautioned fellow Europeans that “we have a future filled with danger.” He insisted their countries, which spent centuries at one another’s throats in devastating and bloody wars, must continue to strive for “agreements at political, social and economic levels.” For many, the moody Frenchman with big ideas yet painstaking attention to detail was the most influential figure in constructing a more united Europe since the postwar founders of the Common Market decided to bind their nations together to prevent another war. Wim Kok, a former Dutch prime minister, admiringly called Delors the man “who for 10 years determined the face of Europe like no other.” “I am satisfied like an artisan from whom someone ordered a table and chairs, who did everything he could to craft a fine work, and who today sees it in front of him,” Delors told a newspaper reporter in 1998, three years after leaving Brussels. “A potential European superstate was always thought of as science fiction, but that specter becomes a lot more credible.” Ludlow said Delors was “in a league of his own” as EU Commission president but that he overreached at the end, alienating some European leaders who became “fed up with this guy who hogged the limelight.” A German businessman once likened Delors to the autocratic King Louis XIV of France.