Spring dinner 2008
Guest speaker Mr. Frans Timmermans, Dutch Minister for Foreign Affairs
Born in Maastricht on 6 May 1961, Minister Timmermans has been a member of the House of Representatives of the States General for the Labour Party (PvdA) since 1998 and has been Minister for European Affairs at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs since February 2007.
A graduate of Radboud University in Nijmegen, where he studied French language and literature, and of the University of Nancy, where he completed a postgraduate course in European Law and Politics and French Literature (Diplôme d’études approfondies en littérature; Diplôme d’études supérieures européennes), he completed his military service at the Military Intelligence Service, from 1986 to 1987, before joining the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He subsequently worked as a policy officer in the European Integration Department of that ministry from 1988 to 1990, as Embassy Secretary at the Dutch embassy in Moscow from 1990 to 1993, and as deputy head of the Minister for Development Cooperation’s EEC Affairs Section from 1993 to 1994.
From 1994 to 1995 Mr Timmermans worked for the EU Commissioner Hans van den Broek. Until 1998 he was advisor and private secretary to Max van der Stoel, the High Commissioner on National Minorities for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OCSE).
As a member of the House of Representatives of the States General for the Labour Party (PvdA), Mr Timmermans represented the House in the European Convention. He has acted as guest lecturer at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations (the “Clingendael” Institute) and at the Netherlands Defence College, and has sat on the executive committee of the European Movement.
Mr Timmermans was guest speaker at the INBA dinner at at the Heineken Experience, Amsterdam on April 14th 2009.
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