“Jacques Delors’ Europe was warm”

2023-12-27 21:30:09

He always called me « ma petite ». I was 31, it was twenty years before #metoo and, coming from him, it was full of tenderness and kindness. This very private mention is the first thing that comes to mind when writing this tribute to Jacques Delors, great master of the European building, of a grandeur and a foresight which we miss so much today.

Many people have worked with and for Jacques Delors much longer than me. As far as I am concerned, it was only three years, between 1996, the moment of the opening of the think tank Notre Europe, in Paris, just after his departure from the European Commission, and 1998. But it is in this short period that, in retrospect, I have the impression of having learned everything about Europe. A Europe from a time that no longer exists.

Jacques Delors’ Europe was warm. He would have liked the slogan “Europe that protects”, which we often heard in May 2019 before the last European elections. But he would have spontaneously associated European social protection, which was so close to his heart, and not the protection, in the sense of a closure, of a besieged European fortress.

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The architect of the internal market, with the Single Act in 1986, and of the common currency, established by the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, was also the designer of the European Social Charter of 1989, which, of these three projects, was probably his favorite “baby”. However, this one was stillborn. Britain having refused to sign, the text of the charter remained at the stage of a declaration of intent, expressing much goodwill but containing nothing legally binding.

“The Team”, the unions, the Church

At 25 years old, at the time, I was too naive to understand the importance of this issue. But later, in Paris, once with Jacques Delors, I often heard him deplore the fate of this Social Charter which no one wanted. To date, the European Union has had, since 2004, a “European company” status, allowing certain companies to carry out their activities under a single legal form in all Member States, but not a status making it possible to organize co-management or employee participation.

The “European company” has therefore become a perfect European costume, thanks to which a company can evade its national social obligations. Single market requires… I don’t know if anyone was more saddened by this observation than Jacques Delors himself, silently wondering if he would not have contributed to delivering European workers to a single market devoid of protections of the social Europe for which he had fought.

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