Robert Marjolin

Nationality

France

Date of Birth

1911

Date of Death

1986

Political
Preference

Socialist

Born in Paris, Robert Marjolin was a French economist and politician. After obtaining a university degree from the Sorbonne, Marjolin spent a year at Yale University in 1932-1933, where he studies sociology and economics. Here, he also obtained enough material to write a book on U.S. trade union, which was completed in 1936. In the late 1930s, Marjolin studied law at the University of Paris, and he worked with economist Charles Rist.

During the Second World War, Marjolin became an economic advisor to De Gaulle’s Free French in London, and subsequently in Washington and Algiers. In this capacity, Marjolin became acquainted with many European financial experts, mostly in London, where he participated in the financial talks at the U.K. Treasury initiated by John Maynard Keynes. In this capacity he began thinking of the reconstruction of France and Europe after the war.

After the war, Marjolin became the first director of the Foreign Trade Department at the French Ministry of Economic Affairs and deputy to Jean Monnet, who headed France’s reconstruction and economic modernization effort. As such, Marjolin became an influential voice in shaping both France and Europe’s economic development: he was in favour of strong state control over the economy.

In 1947, Marjolin became involved in the drafting the European response to Secretary of State George C. Marshall’s offer of economic aid to Europe. The report, which emerged from the joint efforts of the Committee for European Economic Cooperation (CEEC) during the summer of 1947, was presented in Washington in October 1947.

In 1948, Marjolin was appointed Secretary-General of the newly established Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC). In this role, he expressed his wish for a stronger economic, but also political integration of European countries, and his ideas substantially shaped the path towards the integration of Germany and other countries, as well as the overall reconstruction of Europe. Together with the head of the Belgian delegation, Baron Snoy, he drafted the so-called Snoy-Marjolin Report, which distributed Marshall Plan-aid for the years 1949-1950 between the OEEC-members, and took the organisation out of a deadlock.

In his capacity as the Secretary-General of the OEEC, Marjolin also advocated closer economic cooperation between the OEEC-members. Particularly in the field of trade and payments, where Marjolin supported ECA’s policy of economic integration.

Marjolin resigned from the OEEC in 1954, but went on to serve the cause of European economic cooperation. From 1955 onwards he headed the French delegation to the negotiations that would lead to the creation of the European Economic Community (EEC). Here too, he argued for common financial, monetary and economic policies between member states. In 1958, he became one of two French European Commissioners on the first European Commission, a position he held until 1967.