Following on Jacques Delors"s footsteps as the head of Notre Europe is no self-evident feat. He is the one who founded the think tank. For eight years, he endowed it with his prestige, his vision, his experience and his sense of a job well done. After having working for sixty years, Jacques Delors has decided not to carry on with some of his activities and the board has now elected me to take up the task of stimulating the research, publication and communication functions of our teams. I take up the task at a time when the European agenda is expanding rapidly : digesting enlargment, ratifying the draft Constitutional Treaty, negotiating the contents of the next multi-annual financial framework, preparing the Turkish membership negotiation, reforming the stability and growth pact, establishing the work programme for the five year term of the Barroso Commission and of the European Parliament elected last June. Notre Europe of course will need to keep as close as always to current events, anticipating them for the benefit of those who act on them, who think about them, who observe them and who comment on them. But it will steadfastly adhere to Jacques Delors"s trademark : papers that are given the time necessary to mature, an inquisitive state of mind, placing ideas in their proper perspective, accompanying European integration at a time when it is no longer loved simply because it is necessary, and at a time when its complex nature has estranged it from popular feeling. Hence the demand for quality and for in-depth research. Hence the call for specialists in economics, in the social sciences and in geopolitics. Notre Europe wants to continue to plough in depth, so that a civic conscience can take root through debate despite the testing gales of globalisation. Jacques Delors, a builder, remained faithful to the spirit of the Founding Fathers. My idea, in a word, is to continue along the same furrow, serving those who today want to keep working on this enterprise. Building Europe. But not just any Europe. « Our » Europe. So let"s get down to work, and best wishes for 2005, a year which promises to be exciting !