Brussels, 23/05/2006 (Agence Europe) - The former President of the European Commission Jacques Delors, who is himself a Charlemagne prize-winner, paid homage to Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who will receive the Charlemagne Prize on 25 May in Aix-la-Chapelle. The laudatio will be read out by former Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Unable to be in Aix-la-Chapelle with the other prize-winners (who will also be taking part in a diner on 24 May for Jean-Claude Juncker), Mr Delors wrote an article that was full of praise for Jean-Claude Juncker in the Our Europe site entitled, “Jean-Claude Juncker, a Great European”. Jacques Delors affirmed that “all European militants have every confidence in him” and in his “lucid optimism”. Delors also had many personal memories of Jean-Claude Juncker. In this context he pointed out that in 1985 when he became President of the Commission, “I had the chance to exercise my responsibilities during the first year of my mandate, under a particularly efficient Luxembourg Presidency, with Jacques Santer, Jacques Poos and Jean-Claude Juncker (who is presiding the Social Affairs and Budget Councils with a “masterly hand”). “I will never forget the decisive role played by these Luxembourg figures in the adoption of the Single Act - real reform of the Treaty of Rome”, declared Mr Delors. He also remembered other stages in the political trajectory of Mr Juncker: in 1991 during a difficult negotiation, “Jean-Claude played a decisive role as Chairman of the Ecofin Council”, “for the integration of the economic and monetary union in the Maastricht Treaty”; in 1996 he became the “Hero of Dublin” by succeeding during the European Council in providing “delicate mediation” on the subject of economic and monetary union between Chancellor Kohl and President Chirac; in November 1997 during a Special Summit, he obtained an agreement compelling Member States to “annually submit an action plan on job creation and set out quantitative and verifiable criteria for job creation and the fight against unemployment”. Mr Delors underlined that his “competency and sensitiveness in social affairs is one of the essential characteristics of his action”. He also cited a recent event, “A man of courage and lucidity, not paralysed by negative referendums in France and the Netherlands, he organised a national consultation on 10 July 2005 on ratification of the Constitutional Treaty. He brought all his weight to bear and Luxembourg ratified the Treaty” (EUROPE 8988).