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The inventory of the François Lamoureux fonds is available online

Posted on 10 October 2016

The François Lamoureux fond relates to his career from 1985 to 2005, with the exception of his time working in the Secretary General of the European Commission. 

The fond is divided into three parts, relating to three consecutives deposits, composed of papers issued from his home (May and August 1992) and 203 files from the Historical Archives of the European Commission in Brussels (November 1992). 

The 771 files allow use to trace the Commission’s history from legal, industrial development, Eastern enlargement and Industry, Energy and Transport policies perspectives. 

The consultation of the archives varies in accordance with their origins: for the European Commission’s archives, which operates under the 30 year rule, you can request a derogation to the Commission through the historical archives (see the inventory introduction). 

François Lamoureux (1946-2006) was a jurist who started his career with the European Commission, at the Secrétariat Général, then at the Legal Department (1980-1984). Here he dealt with Agriculture and Fishing files, financial aids and infringement procedures. In 1985, he entered President Jacques Delors’ cabinet, where he worked on the White Paper of the Internal Market, which became a foundation for the Single Act. He then became Deputy Head of Cabinet and helped with the coordination of Objectif 1992. He also played a part in two intergovernmental conferences on the political union and the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), which dealt with the European Union Treaty. 

In 1991, he served as Deputy Director of Edith Cresson’s cabinet in Matignon where he managed economic, budgetary, industrial and socials issues. He then returned to the Commission in 1992 as Senior Legal Advisor and was entrusted with the implementation of the principle of subsidiarity. In 1993, he was appointed Director of Industrial Policy, where work became part of the framework of the “White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and employment”. 

In early 1995, François Lamoureux was appointed Head of Cabinet of the Edith Cresson, Commissioner for Research, Education and Training, under the Santer Presidency. By the end of 1995, he was promoted Deputy Director-General for External Relations, where he took the lead of the DGI A, in charge of relations with Europe and New Independent States.  

By the end of 1999, he is appointed General Director of Transport, and also deals with Energy from 2000. While in this role, he supported the adoption of a Green Paper “Towards a European strategy for the security of energy supply.” (November 2000) and the White Paper on Transport (September 2001). In order to contribute to a borderless market, he encouraged the development of railway and contributed to the foundation of the European Maritime Safety Agency, the European Aviation Safety Agency, the “single sky” and the Galileo satellite navigation system. 

François Lamoureux makes notable contributions to institutional debate and makes notable contributions to the foundation Notre Europe with Jacques Delors. As a member of the Commission, he took part in the Groupe des Directeurs généraux sur l’architecture institutionnelle pour une Union élargie (2002) and then lead the official group instructed by the Prodi presidency to write a constitutional treaty draft which resulted in the Penelope document. 

He is appointed to the general secretary by Barroso Presidency, but prefers to return to his academic career. He dies prematurely in August 2006. 

View the Lamoureux fonds.

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