Paris, EU leaders pay homage to Jacques Delors. Macron: “He reconciled Europe with its future.”

Brussels – Grave, solemn, proud. This morning (Jan. 5), the tribute that the French Republic dedicated to the late Jacques Delors at the Hotel des Invalides in the heart of Paris: together with President Emmanuel Macron were all the leaders of the main European institutions, several heads of state and government of the 27, and numerous French political leaders. 

Many flocked to offer their tribute to the former president of the European Commission, who passed away last 27 December at the age of 98. A giant who led the EU executive three times, from 1985 to 1995, the years of the Maastricht Treaty, the establishment of the Single Market, the Schengen agreements, the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, and the establishment of the Erasmus program. There were Ursula von der Leyen, today’s tenant of the Berlaymont Palace, the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, and of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde. There were the Belgian premier, Alexander De Croo, the Dutch Mark Rutte, the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the Croatian Andrej Plenković, and the Bulgarian prime minister, Nikolaj Denkov. Somewhat surprisingly, Hungary’s nationalist premier, Viktor Orban, was also there.

Italy was represented by foreign minister and deputy prime minister, Antonio Tajani. Romano Prodi, president of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004, and Enrico Letta, former prime minister and now president of the Institute named after Jacques Delors, were not absent either. The coffin of the French socialist historian crossed the courtyard wrapped in the national flag, to the notes of the Marseillaise and the Ode to Joy. In his lengthy speech, the president of the Republique recalled Delors’ “visionary intuitions,” “courageous choices,” and his “path of life that never conformed to habits and expectations.” A path that is “the emblem of republican meritocracy,” a man who always put “the sense of duty before the sake of power.”

Macron emphasized a keyword of Jacques Delors’ “European humanist” work: reconciliation. “He never tired of reconciliation, of building bridges everywhere, always marching toward that unchanging horizon that mattered most of all, human dignity,” he said, “reconciling Europe with its own future.”His 10 years at the helm of the EU were “Europe’s greatest progression and reminded us that Europe belongs to us and we belong to Europe,” the French president continued. A Europe that in Jacques Delors’ vision is based on a triptych: “Competition that stimulates, solidarity that unites, cooperation that strengthens.”

Macron’s speech closed in on the image evoked in the opening, that of the path of life. “His path has not been interrupted. Jacques Delors has merely passed the baton to us, many of you here are taking it to the head of the European institutions and member states,” he concluded by addressing those present.