The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, hailed “the leading role in Europe” played by former French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, who died on Wednesday 2 December from Covid-19 at the age of 94.
Together with former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, he had “made the dream of a more integrated Europe a reality”, he said. Mr Giscard d’Estaing was at the origin of the European Council, discussions first being held ‘around the fireside’ after 1974.
He was also President of the Convention which, in 2003, presented a draft Constitutional Treaty for the EU, which was rejected following negative referenda in France and Ireland. The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, hailed “a great European” for whom “the destinies of France and Europe were closely linked“.
Finally, the current president of the Renew Europe Group in the European Parliament, the Romanian Dacian Cioloş, said that “the centrist and liberal family, of which he was group president in the European Parliament, (was) losing one of its great figures”.
The European Parliament will pay tribute to Mr Giscard d'Estaing at a ceremony in the Strasbourg hemicycle on 2 February 2021. (Mathieu Bion)