Jacques Delors (1925–2023) was a French economist and politician. He became the eighth President of the European Commission in January 1985 and was the first person to serve three terms in that office. After leaving the Commission he chaired the UNESCO Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century, (1993-1996). He founded the Paris think tank Notre Europe in 1996 and remained one of its presidents. In 2010 Delors supported the Spinelli Group, which was founded to reinvigorate the move for federalism in the European Union.
‘We don’t just need firefighters; we need architects too.’ Interviewed in 2010 by Mittelweg 36, Jacques Delors (1925–2023), three times President of the European Commission, spoke of ‘this Europe of values’, its triumphs and failures, and his hope that a federal Europe of nation states would eventually become a reality.
