I remember, about 30 years ago,

there was a report in Paris Match.

In fact, it was just after the report was published.

I was not famous then.

They came to me,

and they did a story.

They asked questions,

but, as quite often happens at Paris Match,

they asked me

if I could

tell them an anecdote, a little story

to make it come alive.

After all,

we cannot talk exclusively

about monetary union.

Stories, I had stories.

But, I did not...

Nothing... Do you have a hobby?

Ah yes,

I do a little gardening,

and I...

I play a little music.

Ah, music, OK, music, that is interesting!

Where is the piano?

Then I came here with them,

and I showed them the piano.

Then the issue of Paris Match came out.

And you could see

the headline in capitals this big:

The Prime Minister –

virtuoso.

Worse still, they wrote that every day

I spent two hours at the piano.

I told the reporters,

you did me a disservice.

I could only imagine the reaction of my constituents:

Surely he has better things to do?

[The Founding Fathers of Europe]

One of the founding fathers of Europe,

you know,

I don't care for that.

But on the other hand,

I wouldn't want to hide from you

that I was one of the first

voices in the wilderness.

It is these conditions and modalities

that will allow us to move on

to the second stage.

Pierre Werner left his mark on his country

discreetly but deeply,

and it is these same qualities

that make him one of the great Ministers of State of the Grand Duchy

and, without doubt, one of the founding fathers of Europe.

A politician of the calibre of a Monnet or a Schuman,

he had a vision and above all, he had the patience to implement it.

When he stepped back from active political life,

he did so voluntarily, at the height of his popularity, aged 70.

For 40 years he served the State,

30 were spent in politics,

25 in government

and 20 as Prime Minister.

[Gaston Thorn - Honorary Minister of State]

OK, so you want a clearer picture? [Gaston Thorn - Honorary Minister of State]

[Gaston Thorn - Honorary Minister of State]

I think if he has one main quality, [Gaston Thorn - Honorary Minister of State]

it is his fundamental honesty.

A rare thing today.

He is also extraordinarily humble,

which is not the case with all his successors.

He's a very modest person,

and reserved.

I feel like

I have reached the goal I set for myself in '74.

So I think the time has now come for me

at least after the election,

to retire.

And not to get involved,

not to run again

in the next elections.

To me,

he is the greatest of civil servants.

Without a doubt.

He was, and coming from me

this is certainly a compliment,

he was less a politician

and even less a party man

than a civil servant.

[Jean-Claude Juncker – Prime Minister]

And then he gave me, when I entered government [Jean-Claude Juncker - Prime Minister]

at the end of 1982, as a young Secretary of State, [Jean-Claude Juncker - Prime Minister]

so much great advice.

The most important of which,

was undoubtedly the following:

when one enters government

one must forget that one is a member of a party

and instead must govern in the country’s interest.

And I would like all politicians in Luxembourg

to be able to benefit from the same advice

and to know how to apply it.

Knowing how to remain above the fray

is surely one of the great qualities of Prime Minister Werner

in all the governments that he presided over.

Even his political opponents

never accused him of creating political policies

that were purely motivated by personal ambition.

He was pursuing a very specific goal.

At best, running the state, as a good father figure.

To do so, he had a very solid background

in legal studies and political science in Paris.

But as far as the law is concerned,

he has stuck to the famous saying:

it leads to everything, provided you make it through.

I had therefore started

to address the courts

in 1938.

And then following that

I was invited

to do a banking internship.

It was at the Banque Générale du Luxembourg,

and in the meantime

the Germans invaded,

and I stayed

on in the bank,

as a simple bank employee.

And while I was there,

during 5 or 6 years

I had the time to expand

my banking knowledge

and also banking practices.

And after that,

obviously I had a great deal

of professional experience, if you like,

which has been very valuable for me.

It is a very pragmatic view

of the war years and the occupation

which did not traumatise him,

especially since he was protected

from Nazi prosecution by the fact that

the Deutsche Bank held a significant stake

in the bank that employed him.

On the other hand, there was pressure

to join Nazi movements, which he always refused.

In the post-war period, a devastated Luxembourg

gave Pierre Werner the opportunity

to put his financial expertise into practice.

Thanks to friendships made within the Catholic Students' Association,

he became an advisor to the Ministry of Finance.

His contribution was considerable,

his principles were simple –

ensure the country's independence

through sound finances.

Very quickly, he took on important responsibilities

and negotiated a loan

for the Grand Duchy from the World Bank in Washington.

This meant travelling across the Atlantic, which became annual visits

to the World Bank and the IMF.

A source of inspiration and meeting place par excellence.

Contact with the New World opened up new horizons for him,

which he would skilfully introduce in Luxembourg.

The death of his mentor, Minister of State Pierre Dupong,

propelled him into politics for good.

Joseph Bech, the new head of government,

appointed him at the age of 40 to be Minister of Finance.

Pierre Dupong's political legacy

can be found throughout Pierre Werner's career.

In his memoirs, he describes his mentor as:

serious but with great sensitivity,

carrying out projects with a remarkable constancy,

sometimes against the tide.

A portrait which, all in all,

applies as much to the student as to the teacher.

Pierre Werner is a cautious man,

conservative, but someone who in spite of this,

has sometimes pursued surprisingly progressive policies.

Building bridges between the past and the future,

like the bridge that links the city to the European quarter of Kirchberg.

The benefits of a reign

are measured not only

by economic and social progress

achieved in the interest of the citizens,

but also

and aside from cultural refinement,

by the works and landmark buildings

built in line with a vision of the future.

And this is the feature of the bridge that is about to be launched.

It is certainly designed

to solve current and specific problems.

But future generations

will see the more distant effects

and the routes it will have triggered

for development of the city

and the whole region.

I believe he was a visionary

in the sense that

at a time

when nobody

imagined

the European future

as being a radiant future,

he set about creating

a plan that was beyond ordinary.

By this I mean

imagining in the late 1960s

and early 1970s

that one day Europeans

could have a single currency,

while the differences between the Member States and

the European Economic Communities were far greater than the

differences that remain today between EU Member States

was hugely imaginative

for the author of this plan.

And finally, as is very often

the case in European history,

those who, at one time in their lives

were visionaries,

turn out to be the only realists we have.

We are visionaries at the beginning,

and we are credited with a deep realism towards the end.

But this end is sometimes slow in coming.

It is certainly not his greatest achievement,

but it is incredibly revealing of his character:

an elevator between the old town and the upper town,

a project taking 42 years to complete.

The first time he stood in the elections, the commune elections of '45,

the elevator was his main cause.

His first political attempt and a bitter failure.

And I would like to say to politicians

that they should not get discouraged

if one of their ideas, however good it may be,

doesn't succeed first time around or even second time around.

If they have a good idea

they also need to have the necessary patience

until it is realised.

[Luc Frieden - Euro Minister]

As a man, I am especially indebted to him for [Luc Frieden - Euro Minister]

showing every time [Luc Frieden - Euro Minister]

that decisions should not be made

with today in mind,

but that we should see the future objective.

The Euro is an excellent example.

Drawing a portrait of Pierre Werner

without mentioning his greatest defeat is impossible.

Electoral defeat is something

part of the democratic game,

but how to react to it is something else.

His way was exemplary.

The elections of '74 saw

the Christian Social Party clearly losing.

Without even knowing his own result,

and without knowing the final figures

needed to calculate possible government majorities,

Pierre Werner chose the opposition benches.

With a clear verdict, there was a subsequent reaction.

We had to get through this.

You claimed power, and did you say,

that would mean the next government

would have Gaston Thorn as its president?

My goodness,

I would say that according to the election result

it was possible,

but it is certainly not

my personal ambition

that will decide this.

We are now an opposition party.

Fortunately, it would only last 5 years.

Otherwise I might speak of it differently.

He didn't need it,

and this confirms it,

that this man of conviction

drew a conclusion from this vote,

whereas many politicians

would have hung on to the end.

The [CSV], as it was in 1974,

was not exactly something

one could fall in love with [PSC Congress 1975]

[PSC Congress 1975]

at first sight. [PSC Congress 1975]

And so with many consequences and convictions

he modernised the party.

And he managed to make

it, maybe not young and appealing, but at least

something that would be attractive.

He also developed into a true opposition politician.

It was a change he was barely believed capable of making.

During his time in the opposition and after,

he didn't become a spiteful politician.

But when he returned,

he had learned something,

he was rich with experience and it served him well.

[Leader of the Opposition]

In assessing the situation, [Leader of the Opposition]

[Leader of the Opposition]

I think there is not so much difference

between the government and the opposition.

This recession is complex.

I hope he will not mind,

but I would say it is a profession

that he never really learned.

He used to be a man who worried,

wearing dark suits,

with sombre hair.

But after '74, [André Claude - Information and Press Service]

after the rejuvenating cure of being in the opposition, [André Claude - Information and Press Service]

I cannot judge the party, but as for him, [André Claude - Information and Press Service]

he came back completely rejuvenated.

Now he wore light-coloured suits,

coloured ties,

and had a rebellious streak.

He was funny, and he had a mischievous look,

he liked to laugh.

And in my opinion,

he also felt that the people

who, previously, used to meet him

always with a censer in their hand,

because after all, he was Prime Minister

for so many years,

that his political friends

behaved more like politicians

than like real friends.

[CLR 1936]

The richness of the Little Country was also that –

the radio, and later television, RTL and CLT,

the Luxembourg Broadcasting Company.

With extraordinary audacity,

Pierre Werner developed the audiovisual sector

by reaching for the stars.

Luxembourg entered the satellite era thanks to him,

and that bewildered more than one person

since it was so inconsistent with the

image they had of his character.

And I would almost say

that at times, and this is not a criticism,

he hesitated because of his seriousness,

because of his sense of responsibility.

Instead, he thought about things two or three times

before deciding.

Before going for the right decision.

He certainly wasn't someone who

blindly jumped into cold water.

[Kourou 11.12.1988]

Five

Four

Three

Two

One

Top!

Before, people always used to say

that I couldn't make a decision,

you must remember.

In this case, one certainly cannot say

that I hesitated.

Now, if I may say,

at least I can show myself in public again.

Face people without leaving myself open to being accused

of having led the country down a path

that leads nowhere.

Today was a great day,

full of anticipation,

which, personally,

I thought was quite normal

because such a large undertaking

is not so easy to achieve.

Why did he become involved in this high-risk venture?

Precisely so as not to risk decreasing

state revenues.

The steel crisis showed

the extreme precariousness of the backbone

of the economy.

It was necessary to diversify,

to develop audiovisual media and the financial industry.

Pierre Werner's other great challenge

was European integration.

As Robert Schuman once said in Luxembourg,

and I quote,

Europe is not a simple thing,

because it is not a creation of the mind

that everyone can build in their own way,

but a realistic undertaking.

From the timid beginnings

of the Treaty establishing

the Coal and Steel Community

to Monetary Union, there was, for him, only a short step.

European integration must necessarily involve

balanced finances.

As with the satellites,

he wanted to consolidate the economy

to protect it from crises.

I think that at the time,

it was a very good thing domestically

for Luxembourg,

to know that its Prime Minister

was the man who, after Schuman and so many others,

was being talked about, was somebody

who had proposed the next step,

which was considered then the next step,

for European integration.

It gave us legitimate pride.

Of course, in the beginning,

I was considered a bit of a utopian,

that's inevitable.

But, I must say, there were still

people who supported me.

There is someone who encouraged me a lot,

and that was Jean Monnet.

At one point

he said to me:

Listen Mr Werner,

we are now at a point

where the most important thing

is monetary union.

We must remember that,

We must remember that, [Jacques Santer - President of the European Commission]

at the time, we were not yet talking about a single currency, [Jacques Santer - President of the European Commission]

[Jacques Santer - President of the European Commission]

we were talking about an economic and monetary union.

And that's the base he started from.

On the other hand, it has to be said

that it is not the first time

that he used the phrase single currency.

And I remember very well,

though few people remember it,

that the name

given at the time to,

let's say this single currency,

was the Euror.

Three years after the signing of the Treaty of Rome,

Pierre Werner, a very young Prime Minister,

speaks for the first time publicly

during a speech in Strasbourg,

about the idea of a fiscal and monetary union

based on the Treaty

where figures were already expressed

in European units of account

in order to better compare the burdens of the Member States.

Notice was taken of his conference,

and above all, it was the starting point

for his European actions.

He had, as he would later say,

found his niche for the future.

Ten years later,

he found himself at the head of a commission

which, like the Spaak Committee,

in charge of drafting the Treaty of Rome,

detailed the basis of the single currency.

I believe his role was

essential and defining.

I would say, what reinforces his merit

in the chain of people

who worked to create the Euro

is that he was at the origin of it and at the beginning,

and it all has to start

at some point.

And if Pierre Werner had not begun,

and begun so well,

I do not know, maybe we would still have

Europe, the Euro rather,

one day,

but certainly, we would not have it now.

It would be no more than a technical question

of transforming six currencies

into one currency

whose acronym has already been invented.

The technical question took time, but

what is striking is not the crises and setbacks

but the similarity of the discourse regarding intent

at decades apart.

A truly

general agreement

emerged on the need

to make greater progress

more rapidly

in terms of coordinating

economic and monetary policies

economic and monetary policies [Jean Rey - President of the European Commission]

in order to achieve over the coming years [Jean Rey - President of the European Commission]

a genuine monetary union

as specified in the text of the final communiqué.

It seems to me,

and I said it yesterday as well

somewhere else here in Brussels,

that the need for a strong and stable single currency

is stronger than ever.

The Commission is absolutely convinced of this,

and recent events

have only strengthened this conviction.

Indeed, at that time,

we were almost on target,

and at the Amsterdam summit

we could say that the Euro was,

so to speak, on track.

Tracks are reminiscent of trains,

but the image of the bicycle offered to the head of government

better illustrated the pace at which things were moving.

The easiest part was

agreeing on the design of the coins.

The most difficult was

that the single currency meant

abandoning individual currencies

and above all, abandoning sovereignty.

The prerequisite for this

is a harmonisation of economic policies,

some maintained.

Others advocated moving directly to the common currency.

A difficult debate.

At the time,

when Pierre Werner made his report

it was me who proposed doing it like that.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs.

It was the Minister of Foreign Affairs who said,

What do we do now?

It is that age-old question,

which came first,

the chicken or the egg?

Some people said, first,

we have to complete the economic union,

and that will lead to monetary union.

And others said, we must have monetary union,

then the economy will follow.

Of course, what had to be done

was to do both. Which is what we did in the end.

But it took a long time.

And then when we said:

which working group

should receive this report,

and who will chair it?

I was the one who suggested Pierre Werner.

And some were surprised.

I had put a condition

on the acceptance of the mandate,

which was that, in fact,

the six members

had to state they wanted me to accept it.

A colleague

from the Foreign Office, and quite an important one,

came to me and said Gaston,

you must withdraw this suggestion.

But I said, why do you want me to withdraw this?

Listen, we decided to write this report,

which is good, but, some did so with more enthusiasm than others.

So, it may very well be

that we come to a point where we want to kill

off this idea, and it's hard to kill it off

if a Prime Minister is at the head of this task force.

I told him, you see, that's precisely why I want it to be him.

That's my immediate recollection of what

was said about launching the Werner report.

We were given six months

to write the report.

Within this group

of experts there were

very diverse

and contradictory

ideas about monetary theory.

In particular, we have

reaffirmed

the irreversibility

of the process

of economic and monetary union

and we have also reaffirmed

the absolute parallelism

which must exist

between, on the one hand, the actions to be carried out

to coordinate and converge economic policies

and, on the other,

those actions in the purely monetary domain.

And I remember, President Pompidou

saying at the time, I think you're interested,

and I said: I do not know what Europe will agree to,

but what we do know

is that we have to go further.

We cannot stop where we are now.

We need to make progress.

Back in the day, they used to say,

Will we have a federal or confederate Europe?

He called it

the European Union at the time.

And I said, but what does that mean?

He said, I do not know myself.

He said, but if I said this,

the federalists would be against me,

if I say the opposite, the nationalists would be against me

so I have used that term and then later we will see

what substance the union will have.

In the end, we came

to a compromise

that may not have

solved all the issues.

But there it is,

you have to start at both ends.

In other words, we start

by achieving greater convergence

of economic policies

and budgetary policies in particular.

And secondly,

it was then necessary to start

to set up a mechanism

that would make it possible

to operate

or reduce

fluctuations

that were too big

between the different currencies.

The 1980 horizon remains fixed.

The first step is defined

according to the broad outlines found

in my group's report.

So, all in all,

I can express my satisfaction.

You say the 1980 horizon remains fixed.

Is that for a European currency, possibly?

Yes, if appropriate, yes, yes.

In any case for fixing parity

between European currencies,

which is practically equivalent

to a European currency.

Making such a statement was all the same a little over-optimistic.

But in fact the steps set forth in the famous Werner plan

did not differ much from those that were subsequently applied.

With just a small delay of 20 years.

One of the main reasons for the delay

was the global monetary crisis

followed by the oil crisis.

The fall of the dollar caught Europeans

totally off guard and reinforced

nationalist and protectionist instincts.

The crises did not affect the merits or positive qualities

or possible mistakes of the Werner plan.

Not in the slightest. It was always possible to discuss and make corrections.

No, these were crises independent

of the Werner plan content.

These were European crises.

These were political crises.

Sometimes these were economic crises, including

the oil crisis, etc.,

that caused us to stagnate,

and we simply did not have any ideas on that.

And we did not want to move forward.

But, it was not the plan itself

that was found wanting.

Within the Community

we have had

political crises,

a number of them,

which have sometimes

stopped the course of things,

or delayed the course of things.

But,

they have never made

us go back on what

we had done before

and previously decided.

And then there were the quarrels between people,

as always. OK.

There was the Barre Plan.

There were Mr Jenkins' ideas.

There were Mr Schmidt’s ideas.

Mr Giscard d'Estaing's ideas.

And then, according to the national press of some and that of others,

merit should be attributed to one rather than the other, etc.

But I would say that they all, all of them,

the ones I just named,

Barre, Jenkins and even Ortoli, etc.,

each had some merit.

But, nobody will take away

from Pierre Werner the right of seniority

and the fact that he was at the beginning of the whole operation.

I believe that he

achieved a fundamental piece of work

and if it had not seen the light of day

this report could not be executed.

It was as a result of the crisis

of 1974,

the oil crisis,

and the international environment that was not favourable.

And that's why

I was always of the opinion

that one must never

on the one hand, despair,

in other words, one must,

once the work is undertaken,

ensure it is carried out.

That is what we did, almost 20 years later,

in 1999,

and then a little later.

I believe that without

this fundamental contribution,

certainly,

the Euro, that is, the Euro,

the Economic and Monetary Union,

would have taken much longer.

At the beginning of the 1970s,

it was he who imagined

the entire architecture

for the single currency.

He drew up his plan

together with others, but he

was the main architect.

Without this report, which moreover, was valuable

for many long years,

when nothing was happening,

it was the only reference value.

Without this report and without its author

the single currency, most certainly,

would not exist.

It still took some time

for them to achieve it

but I was never

without hope that we would take

at least some steps forward.

Astonishing certainty,

which in some people could translate into a certain arrogance,

but which in Pierre Werner's case originated in his faith.

The C in his party's title

is not a redundant letter.

A good and financially sound family man,

he is an active Christian.

He lives a life of benchmarks and fixed values –

a life that is simple.

Away from politics,

he loves being at one with nature,

and it is here in the north of the country,

where the Werner family has a second home,

that he unwinds

and takes the time to walk

and to think.

If the portrait of Pierre Werner

up to now shows a thoughtful man

who is capable of daring,

when it comes to everything related to social issues

he is profoundly conservative.

Without his crossing of the wilderness,

i.e. the five years of opposition of the PSC,

Luxembourg would probably not have seen

any liberalisation of the laws on divorce and abortion.

To quote him:

“They transgressed the limits of the divine order.”

On the occasion of the debate in the House,

he asserted that marriage is not

a neutral institution

left to the whims of the individual,

[COVENTRY 1963] but the domestication of a sexual instinct

that has so often lost its way in history.

His own marriage to Henriette Pescatore

was stable and happy.

His wife was a woman who was discreet,

but devoted, who took care of the children,

and her role should not be underestimated

when it came to her husband.

She was a confidante, sometimes an advisor,

and she contributed greatly to his remaining balanced.

Her untimely death, 6 months before his retirement,

was surely the most difficult blow in his life.

His greatest success,

undoubtedly his idea of the Euro,

was taken up by many others.

It was in 1989

that the Delors Committee was set up,

which took over or

I might say reworked,

the Werner plan, but

in the Werner spirit.

Without Werner's contribution,

it certainly would have taken

even longer than necessary.

The Delors Committee's report

is in line with

that of the Werner Committee.

I think the Werner report

came too soon.

But he had the merit, as I have said,

But he had the merit, as I have said, [Jacques Delors - President of the European Commission]

of inspiring [Jacques Delors - President of the European Commission]

a whole generation of men and women [Jacques Delors - President of the European Commission]

who wanted to build Europe,

in particular, through a single currency.

After a first attempt

in '79 to restart it

by the president of the Roy-Jenkins Commission,

which led to the European Monetary System and ECU,

it would take another 10 years

before there was a new impetus with the Delors report.

The goals set in 1989

were the liberalisation of flows of capital,

fixed exchange rates and

the introduction of a single common currency.

Once again 10 years later,

Pierre Werner's vision became a reality.

This was in particular thanks to

the Maastricht Treaty.

In terms of

feelings and impressions,

the highlight

was the signing of the Maastricht Treaty,

because by signing

this treaty,

I told myself I had just signed a document which,

for many generations,

would form the daily life

of Europeans.

At the time, I am talking about February ‘92,

there were few Europeans who believed in it,

who had understood

the revolutionary character

of this treaty.

What of course

delights me

is that the structure

of the Maastricht Treaty institutions

corresponds exactly

to the conclusions

of my group.

And I could no longer

hope perhaps

to see the day

when we would have a Euro.

But I still

felt a great satisfaction

when it was done, even if it was a bit late.

With his theoretical background and

the experience drawn from his banking years,

he was predestined to create

conditions suited for the development of the Luxembourg financial industry.

Development which also offers more than one parallel

with the creation of the single currency.

Firstly, the dates coincide.

In the '70s, there is the Werner plan for the Euro,

and at the same time, the banks

flourished in the Grand Duchy.

There were about 30 in the late 1960s

and then nearly 100 in '74,

and over 200 in 1999.

Rapid development which

obviously makes people jealous.

Pierre Werner had to defend himself against

many international critics

but also national critics.

As always, it would not

make him change course.

He was convinced that Luxembourg

would contribute to the elimination

of financial divisions

that challenged the creation

of a wide European market.

In other words,

by promoting the Luxembourg financial industry,

he helped the country

and continued to work on behalf of Europe

and anticipation of monetary union.

When the financial industry was attacked

at the time,

I had already

defended the thesis

that it was necessary to be careful,

even when creating the single currency.

Because we must not discourage

and drive out capital

from the European monetary zone.

And that it is still also, in part,

necessary to reconcile

fiscal

and financial justice

with the needs of the whole.

This I may have sometimes

suffered in my own mind, but...

but there was also

an acceptable compromise.

With the reality of the single currency,

monetary policy was individual,

and economic policies would have to be

better and more closely coordinated.

In this sort of context,

a number of consequences will have to be

drawn from the fundamental reality

the single currency will bring about.

There will therefore be, among other things,

taxation alignments,

and I would add,

on the basis of my personal convictions,

that there will also have to be

further social harmonisation.

This need for alignment of tax laws

was a need that Pierre Werner had outlined

in his report, in the report that bears his name

because he too, at the time, had spoken in favor of

an alignment of tax laws.

That which in Luxembourg, we have a little too much of a tendency to forget

that which abroad, we have a little too much of a tendency to overestimate.

The final stretch for the Euro.

A certain feverishness is gripping the financial world,

who will be the first to have to adopt the Euro,

to prepare for the final deadline of 1 January 1999.

When the door opens onto Euro Land,

in its initial phase, for the citizens

it is only an abstract currency.

The common man would have to wait another

two years before being able to touch the coins

and make purchases in Euros.

But the banks were preparing for it.

They were working hard,

as with any other big change,

it would make life easier

once the enormous amount of adaptation work was accomplished.

But at this point,

there are very few sceptics.

The point of no return has definitely been reached.

As proof,

the festivities are beginning

and the Euro is entering our lives,

it is talked about everywhere,

it inspires artists

and is found in all forms,

even on petits fours.

And who could blame Pierre Werner

for enjoying it?

30 June 1998 gave him immense pleasure.

The official inauguration

of the new institution

which has its headquarters here in Frankfurt,

the European Central Bank.

All the European

political elite are there.

Everyone sees and recognises

that Pierre Werner is

one of the spiritual pillars of this bank.

Three Luxembourgian people make the trip to Frankfurt together,

to experience this together.

Three generations:

the first, Pierre Werner, had a vision,

the second, Jean-Claude Juncker, is helping to make it a reality,

and the third, Luc Frieden, will oversee its implementation.

I had asked Mr Werner to accompany me

when the European Central Bank was set up in Frankfurt.

It was in my life, let's say, more privately,

in my political-private life,

a great moment because

Mr Werner had asked me

to be part of his last government,

at a time when very little was said

about the single currency,

and I was there with my former leader,

with this great statesman,

which is what Mr Werner is,

and I realised

when I saw all those who approached him

to congratulate him,

what he had achieved

approximately twenty years ago,

and that he was considered by all and still is,

the great creator

of the single currency.

I think he was very happy

to be there again on that day

when the Euro was created.

We exchanged many ideas

about the '99 era and '70's,

when the idea was born.

We drove to Frankfurt

together in the car,

and it was for me

two and a half hours of lived history.

It was an event

that I will never forget.

For me this celebration has a double meaning.

First of all I am, of course, happy

that an idea I have been championing

for about thirty years

finally came to fruition.

And secondly,

that all the sceptics

who were with me along the way

have now been proved wrong.

And then, of course, there is

also the personal satisfaction

of being alive

and being able to live this moment.

For those reasons, this day

is of very great importance.

In general, both politically

and also personally.

It is true that,

when one has the chance

to be there at the time of this great idea,

which was started by Mr Werner,

and when one can translate this great idea

into a concrete achievement, then one feels

towards this subject

a little like a grandson,

looking to be inspired

by what his grandfather did,

just like those who, afterwards

those who were the fathers, if you like

of these decisions, because I repeat,

for me it was a very great political decision.

It is often said that markets dominate

Europe, but no, if there had not been

politicians, great politicians, who

at some point, took the decision

to make the Euro a concrete achievement

on 1 January 1999,

the Euro would not have been born.

Mr Werner was the inspiration

for this idea,

and it was up to us to

put it into practice.

No one is a prophet in their own country,

but Pierre Werner is the exception to this saying.

His patience was doubly rewarded.

Not only did he see his idea realised,

but the time it took also made us

understand its merits, and it earned him

rare public recognition at the European Council.

And I would like to, in our language,

on my own behalf,

and on behalf of the citizens of my country and of Europeans,

thank you Mr Werner

for what you have done for us

and for Europe.

Who said the Euro was a long way off?!

There were several stages to the day.

First of all in the morning

there was a meeting of finance ministers in Brussels.

That was where we launched the Euro,

its birth, and its baptism, so to speak.

The events of the evening

in Luxembourg were impressive,

because Mr Werner was there.

In the morning everyone was talking about him,

and in the evening he was there.

But I had even more fun in the morning

when everyone was talking about him,

than seeing him in the evening.

Today,

it all ends here in Luxembourg,

at the Publications Office,

the coming into force of the regulation on the Euro,

which determines

not only

the conversion rates,

but also the world's largest

currency zone,

which will apply from tomorrow.

It is therefore a great event

that we are celebrating today

in a very solemn way

but also in a modest way.

It is a great event

for the European Union,

it is a great event also

for citizens of the European Union.

These are the first official documents

of the publication that you see there,

of the Euro.

It is symbolic.

I cannot hide the fact that I am currently experiencing

great satisfaction.

And that I am moreover moved

by the coincidence of

it being my 85th birthday,

on the eve of the definitive birth of the Euro.

That's a great thing,

as well as the letter from the former German chancellor,

Helmut Kohl,

a letter he sent to me today saying:

“You could not have received a nicer birthday present.”

I experienced, personally of course,

a very great satisfaction,

but I was also very proud

that two Luxembourgers

were closely involved.

The President of the Commission who,

by chance, was a Luxembourger at that time,

and of course, my mentor,

Pierre Werner.

Whether you believe me or not,

I told my wife that

now Pierre Werner is happy.

That is a good thing.

Not for me, but for him.

[The Founding Fathers of Europe]

[Journalists: Caroline Marte - Joëlle Hengen]

[Translation: Pascal Becker]

[Camera: Tina Amrani - Rene Kitzler]

[Editing: Thomas Pietschmann - Christophe Wantz - Jean-Roland Lamy au Rousseau]

[Production: CLT-UFA as requested by the European Commission]

[Acknowledgements: CNA - Media Library of the European Commission - RTL Archives]