Former EU Commission president Jacques Delors dies: daughter

PARIS: Jacques Delors, a former head of the EU Commission and key figure in the creation of the euro currency, has died, his daughter Martine Aubry told AFP on Wednesday.

Delors, who was 98, died in his sleep in his Paris home on Wednesday, she said.

Delors, a Socialist, had a high-profile political career in France, where he served as finance minister under president Francois Mitterrand from 1981 to 1984.

But he declined to run for president in 1995 despite being overwhelmingly ahead in the polls, a decision he later put down to “a desire for independence that was too great”.

He headed up the European Commission from 1985 to 1995, a decade that saw major steps in the bloc´s integration.

These included the creation of the common market, the Schengen accords for travel, the Erasmus programme for student exchanges and the creation of the bloc´s single currency, the euro.

His drive for increased integration met with resistance in some member countries, especially Britain under prime minister Margaret Thatcher.