There are literally thousands of images of Jacques Delors within the European Fee archives, and on a lot of them seems a poster of the movie “Citizen Kane”, which held on the wall of his Berlaymont workplace.
Thought-about one of many biggest motion pictures ever made, the long-lasting 1941 movie directed by, produced by, and starring Orson Welles wasn’t effectively acquired within the US. It may have been forgotten if it wasn’t rediscovered in France within the late 50s – most likely when Delors found it himself.
A lot later, I had the prospect to talk to Delors, and on one event, he advised me that when he was younger, he very a lot wished to be a movie director or a journalist.
However his father insisted that he ought to get a critical job. “That is how I grew to become a financial institution clerk, the primary of my fifteen professions”, he advised me.
Certainly, in his youth, Delors was near the journalistic occupation. From 1959 to 1965, he directed the journal ‘Residents 60’ of the personalist mouvement La Vie nouvelle. He then grew to become a syndicalist and a determine of the French left.
He advised me that he calls himself a Christian socialist, including that, sadly, there isn’t any such political get together in France.
There’s a occupation Delors didn’t take. In 1994, he famously refused to run for president of France in 1995, though opinion polls predicted his victory. I believe he did as a result of, as an trustworthy particular person, he knew he shouldn’t take the duty with out having a nationwide energy base.
Delors felt rather more comfy in Brussels throughout his ten years as Fee chief from 1985 to 1995 however suffered a significant disappointment when Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, and never him, was put in control of the Conference on the Way forward for Europe in 2001.
Solely weeks later, in 2001, along with two excellent Bulgarian journalists, Toma Tomov and Ivo Hristov, we began work on a two-hour TV documentary about Delors’ legacy.
When the movie was virtually prepared, we mentioned choices for the title. After we have been reviewing video footage, a technician by the way stopped the recording, and what we noticed within the body was the weird ornament in his austere workplace — the “Citizen Kane” poster.
That is how “Citizen Delors” grew to become the title of our movie. A lot later, in 2015, Delors was named a “Citizen of Europe”, changing into the final particular person to obtain an honour solely Jean Monnet and Helmut Kohl had beforehand loved.
I personally assume Delors needs to be described because the architect of the EU and because the final of the ‘fathers of Europe’. The title ‘European Union’ and the EU flag grew to become ours below his watch.
A part of the documentary was primarily based on an extended dialogue we had with Delors in his assume tank Notre Europe in Paris in 2001, weeks earlier than the euro cash and notes began circulating.
French francs have been nonetheless the official foreign money, however kits of the brand new euro cash and euro cents have been on the market within the put up workplaces. I purchased such a equipment, and in the course of the interview, I took a one-euro coin and handed it to Delors.
At that second, I realised that this was the primary time Delors touched a euro coin, regardless of being the daddy of the European foreign money.
I requested Delors what he felt holding the euro coin. The cameraman was zooming on his face.
He mentioned that he feels pleasure “even supposing the “eleventh-hour activists bought the credit score for themselves”.
Certainly, when the euro was launched weeks later, there was little point out of Jacques Delors.
“I really feel like a person on the Himalaya high, linked to all different alpinists, and all of us rejoicing, and I’m not glorifying my function”, he added.
I retorted:
“The euro ought to have been named the Delors. It has a pleasant consonance with the greenback, plus in French, it means gold.”
He appeared moved and interrupted me:
“There have been additionally concepts to place the face of Mr. Delors on some cash. However somebody didn’t like the thought. You recognize, it’s amusing watching the eleventh-hour activists. However that is life.”
I got here again:
“Anyway, each euro coin is a medal to Mr. Delors”.
“You might be too variety. Right here is your coin again.”
This morning, I printed on social media a recording of this dialog, dubbed in Bulgarian. Sadly, the documentary will not be out there on-line, and I solely maintain a VHS videocassette recording of poor high quality.
It’s not seen on the video, however I noticed tears in Delors’ eyes.
I’m a journalist, and often, I don’t make compliments to politicians, however this was the massive exception.
Was I a journalist at that second?
Really, the Delors magic occurred, and for a number of seconds, I used to be Orson Welles.
