B2 The Daily of Geopolitical Europe. News. Files. Reflections. Reports

Blog AnalysisEuropean history

Edgard's fate

(credit: European Commission)
(credit: European Commission)

(B2) 97 is a good age to die, especially after having lived like Edgard Pisani. A man with many facets.

Presumed to be the father of the Common Agricultural Policy, he is not just that. He is also an apostle of French-style nuclear deterrence, and a specialist in the defense budget. It was also his "specialty" at the start of his political career. In 1958, he also opposed General de Gaulle's state of emergency. Among Europeans, he is known for having been the champion of a "real" European development policy (he was its European commissioner from 1981 to 1984). In France, he is better known for his report (with L. Fabius) written in 1985, advocating a statute of independence - association for New Caledonia. Very criticized report but which finally was quite visionary since the referendum of self-determination is planned... next year (Pisani would have been 100 years old).

Born British turned French

Born British in Tunis on a certain day in October 1918, a month just before the armistice, he had a career interrupted by the war. A graduate of Lycée Louis-le-Grand, the Sorbonne and the Institute for Advanced Studies in National Defense (IHEDN), his destiny seems to be mapped out: senior administration. The war interrupts him. Demobilized, he goes to the "renegades"... In other words, the Resistance.

Renegade turned prefect of police and dir. ministerial cab

Upon liberation, he was appointed Chief of Staff to the Prefect of Police in 1944, then two years later Chief of Staff to the Minister of the Interior. After a short stint in the prefecture of Haute Loire (the youngest prefect, at 28), he occupied for almost a year (January - December 1947) the post of director of the cabinet of the Minister of Defense, François Billoux. He was then appointed prefect of Haute-Marne, which he made his capital as a senator.

A specialist in national defense issues

Elected in 1954, then re-elected, he sat (in particular) on the National Defense Committee and was passionate about the question of the national defense budget. He is rapporteur for a bill on the reform of army recruitment. He will be rapporteur for the National Defense Commission on several projects (general organization of national defence, reservists, etc.). He defends a defense budget that can "  reflect the ability to anticipate » on the major future issues, considering it more important to define hierarchies and responsibilities than to accumulate military equipment. NB: Edgard Pisani will not only have these subjects in his pocket as a senator, social housing, the finances of local communities and above all agriculture and the income of farmers, rural territory oblige. What will be important later...

nuclear deterrence power factor

In 1956, he co-wrote, with his colleague de Maupeau, a report which highlighted the prospects of atomic energy for National Defense and pleaded for France to acquire "a policy of nuclear deterrence in order to maintain its position among the great powers ". A convinced European, he voted in 1957 for the creation of the common market and Euratom. In May 1958, Edgard Pisani voted against the state of emergency, believing that the government already had full powers. And argues for a North African confederation solution. But in June 1958, he voted full powers to General De Gaulle and the constitutional revision.

The father of the CAP and of "another" development policy

Gaullist, he was minister several times from 1962 to 1967 in the governments of Michel Debré as Minister of Agriculture (it was there that he designed what would become the CAP, the common agricultural policy), and of Georges Pompidou , as Minister of Equipment. He broke away from Gaullism to join the Socialist Party in 1974. Returned to the Senate under Giscard in 1974, he resigned after the election of François Mitterrand in May 1981 to go to Brussels as European Commissioner for Development, replacing Claude Cheysson called as Minister .

The father of a more modern development policy

The Commission of the European Communities was then headed by the Luxembourger Gaston Thorn. There are some "mythical" names such as the Italian Lorenzo Natali in Mediterranean policy and Enlargement, the Belgian Etienne Davignon in Industry, the Dutchman Andriessen in Competition. In Brussels, Pisani will leave a certain trace. He is the author of the report on the development policy of 1982 (2) prelude to the renewal of the Lomé III agreements which will be signed in 1984 and which introduce an important innovation: to pass from the financing of scattered projects to the financing of more integrated policies. He had previously participated in the commission headed by Willy Brandt which had resulted in 1980 in a investigation report advocating the redefinition of North-South relations.

(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)

NB: He is the father of the economist Jean Pisani-Ferry, director of Bruegel.

(*) On which all the students in European affairs worked... at the time

Nicolas Gros Verheyde

Chief editor of the B2 site. Graduated in European law from the University of Paris I Pantheon Sorbonne and listener to the 65th session of the IHEDN (Institut des Hautes Etudes de la Défense Nationale. Journalist since 1989, founded B2 - Bruxelles2 in 2008. EU/NATO correspondent in Brussels for Sud-Ouest (previously West-France and France-Soir).

One thought on “Edgard's fate"

  • Jolyon Howorth

    Nicolas,

    Thank you for having greeted Edgard Pisani: a great state clerk, a great man and a great personal friend.

    Jolyon

Comments closed.

s2Member®