This week Jacques Delors has died at the age of 98, ten years president of the European Commission, father of the euro and key man in the formation of the current EU. But Delors was previously Mitterrand’s Economy Minister and it prevented – after three devaluations of the franc – France from following a nationalist and statist route. Mitterrand hesitated, but Delors prevailed: France and Germany should go together towards the single currency in a social market economy. Delors, who for years advised the CFDT, today the first French union, believed that democratic socialism could not and should not go against the principles of orthodoxy and economic rationality. Nothing is free and what the State pays is paid by the taxpayers. For this reason, resorting to public deficits and debt are not taboo, but they must be handled with caution.
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