TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/091889/09188900.039

Text File | 1990-09-17 | 3KB | 55 lines

WORLD, Page 43

"Mr. Europe" Leads the Way


    If Western Europe's plane ride toward market unity in 1992 has
finally reached cruising speed, that is due in large measure to the
skillful maneuvering performed by the craft's chief pilot, Jacques
Delors. It was the shrewd but sometimes prickly Frenchman, shortly
after he became the European Commission's President in 1985, who
selected 1992 as the target date for eliminating trade barriers
among the Community's twelve members. And it was Delors, 64, who
conducted a nonstop p.r. campaign on behalf of the plan. His
efforts have earned him the nickname "Mr. Europe" and comparisons
to the late Jean Monnet, his fellow Frenchman and the architect of
the postwar European movement.

    When Delors arrived in Brussels, the Community had experienced
more than a decade of drift, along with some unpleasant jolts
brought on by two international oil crises. Even though the
establishment of the Community in 1958 had resulted in the removal
of some tariffs, Delors found that others still persisted and that
customs requirements and manufacturing regulations remained
rampant. The new E.C. chief quickly realized that the elimination
of such impediments could not be accomplished within one four-year
term of office, so he chose the end of the following term, 1992,
as the deadline. At the time, Delors did not know that he would be
reappointed to office and would preside over the transition to a
new Europe.

    The son of a messenger for the Banque de France, Delors is very
much a self-made man. After graduating from high school, he worked
for his father's employer by day and acquired degrees in law and
economics at night. Politically, he has operated both sides of the
fence. From 1969 to 1972 he worked as an adviser to Gaullist Prime
Minister Jacques Chaban-Delmas, and from 1981 to 1984 he served as
Socialist President Francois Mitterrand's Economy and Finance
Minister. When in Paris, Delors lives with wife Marie in a
five-room apartment near the Gare de Lyons. They have one married
daughter Martine; their only son Jean Paul died of cancer several
years ago. Delors's passions other than work are jazz, movies,
soccer and the annual Tour de France, which he has twice observed
as a commentator on French television.

    For a bureaucrat who serves at the pleasure of a dozen bosses,
Delors can be short-tempered and occasionally imperious. During one
memorable speech last year, he accused a British representative on
the 16-member European Commission of being "a lackey of the Labour
Party" and referred indelicately to West German Chancellor Helmut
Kohl as "fat-assed." His blithe contention that eventually E.C.
officials would preside over 80% of the national economic and
social decision making now conducted by individual countries
infuriated Britain's Margaret Thatcher. So does his next major
goal: replacing each nation's currency with a unified European
monetary system. Delors rarely takes on Thatcher directly (surely
a wise decision), but he does go right on talking. "We must build
Europe every day," he says. "We must go all the way."