Robert Marjolin

Robert Marjolin   (economist, civil servant)
Born	27 July 1911 Paris, France
Died	15 April 1986 (Age 74) Paris, France
Nationality	French
Alma mater	Practical School of Advanced Studies, University of Paris, Yale University
Member of	Trilateral Commission
Interests	Marshall Plan
Party	French Section of the Workers' International
French economist/civil servant involved in the Marshall Plan and the formation of the European Economic Community.  European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs  In office 7 January 1958 - 30 June 1967  Secretary-General of the OEEC In office 1948 - 1955

Robert Marjolin was a French economist and politician involved in the formation of the European Economic Community. He attended four Bilderberg meetings.

Early life and education

Robert Majolin was born in Paris, the son of an upholsterer. He left school at the age of 14 to begin work but took evening and correspondence courses at the Sorbonne. A 1931 scholarship from the Rockefeller Foundation enabled him to study sociology and economics at Yale University, which he completed in 1934. He also received a postgraduate doctorate in jurisprudence in 1936. From 1938 he worked as a chief assistant to Charles Rist at the Institute of Economics in Paris. His research at this time, as well as his later political work, was strongly affected by the New Deal programs of American President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Marjolin was particularly concerned with production and price history as well as monetary policy.

World War II and De Gaulle administrations

After the June 1940 French surrender to Germany during the Second World War, Marjolin became an economic advisor to the De Gaulle Government-in-exile in Great Britain. Before the final phase of the war he had already sketched plans for the reconstruction of France and the rest of Europe. Sent to the United States to work with the French economist Jean Monnet, Marjolin became head of the French Supply Mission in 1944. He rejected attempts by the American economy to win itself a prominent position in this mission. While in America he met the artist Dorothy Smith, who came from a Presbyterian family and would become his wife.

After the war Marjolin became the first director of the foreign trade department in the French Ministry of Economic Affairs and then junior minister for the reconstruction of France. In this role he initiated the economic development of France for the following decades. In contrast with Ludwig Erhard of Germany, Marjolin implemented a strong state control of the economy. This contrast defined the relationship between the French and German economic policies for the remainder of the 20th century.

The Marshall Plan and the OEEC

Due to his ministerial responsibilities, Marjolin was particularly involved with the Marshall Plan for assistance to Europe. In August 1947 he published a memorandum which helped persuade the United States Congress to support the plan. In 1948 Marjolin was appointed the first Secretary-General of the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC) which was established to implement the Marshall Plan. Particularly in the last years of his involvement, he tried to divert the organization from its course as a purely technical authority for the administration of the European trade relations. He wanted it to become politically active, in order to achieve both an economic and also an increasing political integration of European countries.

Towards the end of 1954 Marjolin surprisingly resigned from his OEEC position stating that he wished to become "an international civil servant". For a short time he was a member of the staff of the socialist minister of foreign affaires Christian Pineau and an economics professor at the University of Nancy.

Inaugural European Commission member

In 1955 he led the French delegation in negotiations on the formation of the European Economic Community (EEC). He attached particular importance to setting a common economic policy, a financial and monetary policy and as a result got the support of the German delegation leader Alfred Mueller Armack as well as its deputy Hans von der Groeben.

In 1958 he was appointed one of the two French European Commissioners on the first European Commission, the Hallstein Commission with responsibility for the economics and finance portfolios. In January 1962 he was re-appointed to the second Hallstein Commission. Marjolin unsuccessfully stood as a candidate for the French socialists in the French parliamentary election, November 1962. A victory would have meant his leaving the commission but instead he served his full term which expired in January 1967.

After his departure from the Commission, he was a member of the Board of Directors of the Royal Dutch Shell. He is consulted as an expert on European issues (Marjolin report of 1975 on Economic and Monetary Union).

In a 1964 oral interview, the British senior civil servant and Bilderberger Edmund Hall Patch,"talked at length about Marjolin as one of the best Frenchmen that he ever dealt with...He said the most significant thing about Marjolin was that he had complete reliability [which not all Frenchmen have.] He referred to Marjolin as wholly internationally minded, with passion but also with understanding."

Robert Marjolin died in 1986, aged 74, leaving behind a son and a daughter.

 

Events Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
Bilderberg/1955 September	23 September 1955	25 September 1955	Germany Bavaria Garmisch-Partenkirchen	The third Bilderberg, in West Germany. The subject of a report by Der Spiegel which inspired a heavy blackout of subsequent meetings.
Bilderberg/1956	11 May 1956	13 May 1956	Denmark Fredensborg	The 4th Bilderberg meeting, with 147 guests, in contrast to the generally smaller meetings of the 1950s. Has two Bilderberg meetings in the years before and after
Bilderberg/1960	28 May 1960	29 May 1960	Switzerland Bürgenstock	The 9th such meeting and the first one in Switzerland. 61 participants + 4 "in attendance". The meeting report contains a press statement, 4 sentences long.
Bilderberg/1965	2 April 1965	4 April 1965	Italy Villa d'Este	The 14th Bilderberg meeting, held in Italy
Walter Lippmann Colloquium	26 August 1938	28 August 1938	France Paris	Twenty-six of the most prominent liberal thinkers attended this a 1938 conference. The aim was to construct a new liberalism as a rejection of collectivism, socialism and laissez-faire liberalism.

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References

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