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Date: March 13, 1997
Former French President Giscard d'Estaing to Speak at Princeton
Princeton, N.J. -- Valery Giscard d'Estaing, former president of France, will speak on "The European Monetary Union: The Making of a Global Currency" at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs on Wednesday, April 9 at noon in Robertson Hall, Dodds Auditorium.
President Giscard d'Estaing is presently an elected Member of the French National Assembly and chair of its Committee on Foreign Relations. He was previously an elected member of the European Parliament.
As president of France from 1974 until 1981, Giscard d'Estaing proposed the creation of the European Council, which regularly brings together the heads of state of the European Union. Together with former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, he proposed the idea of the European Monetary System (EMS) which was adopted by the European Council in 1979 and paved the way for the European Monetary Union. He also proposed the creation of annual summits of heads of state of the principal industrialized democracies (now called the G-7 Summits), the first of which took place in 1975. He also proposed the creation of the Disarmament Institute, now headquartered in Geneva.
In 1986, he and Helmut Schmidt founded the Committee for the Monetary Union of Europe. This committee, which they co-chair, published the 1988 "Program for Action" which became the basis of the 1989 Delors' Committee Report on the European Economic and Monetary Union. In September of 1996, Giscard d'Estaing launched the Foundation for Democracy in Europe to inform and train the policymakers working with issues related to democracy, as well as to promote studies related to furthering democracy in Europe. He is presently the honorary co-chair of the George C. Marshall Foundation's Planning Committee for the 50th Commemoration of the Marshall Plan, which will take place in 1997. His most recent book, published in 1995, is titled "In Five Years, the Year 2000."
President Giscard d'Estaing's visit is sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Center of International Studies.