By the 1970s, Monnet (who was born in 1888) had reached advanced old age. From late 1974, the formalization of regular European Council meetings, which the Action Committee had advocated, was eventually achieved under newly elected French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, partly substituting for the role Monnet had envisioned for the Committee. Simultaneously, the latter's buildup was becoming less relevant with the gradual erosion of the role of trade unions in European society and public life. Efforts by some Action Committee members and staff to identify a figure that could credibly succeed Monnet as Action Committee chair were unsuccessful. Monnet ended the Action Committee's activity when he resigned from it on , exactly 25 years after the Schuman Declaration which he had directly inspired and helped draft.
