Subsidiarity and Jacques Delors: From Christian Socialism to European Federalism

It is common to consider the subsidiarity principle to be a philosophical idea with timeless content. However, an examination of how this term has been used within the European Union’s legal order suggests that this reading should be discarded because it overlooks its plasticity. Analyzing Jacques Delors’s adoption of the subsidiarity principle allows us to re-situate its community context. Delors strove to ensure the inscription of the principle into the Maastricht treaty, and his own political culture ? which was characterized by personalism ? provided particular resonance to the reinvestment made in this Christian term. However, the subsidiarity promoted by Delors in Brussels quickly became far removed from that of its Catholic origins.