Ben Knapen

Ben Knapen

Hubertus Petrus Maria (Ben) Knapen (born January 6, 1951 in Kaatsheuvel ) is a Dutch journalist , historian and politician . From 1990 to 1996 he was editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad . From October 14, 2010 to November 5, 2012, he was State Secretary for Development Cooperation and European Union Affairs in the Rutte I cabinet for the Christian Democratisch Appèl (CDA) . He has been a member of the First Chamber of the States General since June 9, 2015 .

Life

A historian by training, Knapen worked as a correspondent in Bonn and Washington for the NOS Journal and the NRC Handelsblad from the early 1980s . In 1990 he succeeded Wout Woltz as editor-in-chief at NRC Handelsblad , after having been its deputy for three years. Under Knapen, the paper was the first of the national newspapers in the Netherlands to go online in July 1995 and reached its circulation peak at this time.

In 1996 Knapen left the NRC Handelsblad and became Director of Public Relations at Philips , followed by Folkert Jensma . However, in 1999 he moved to the management team of PCM Uitgevers , the publisher of the NRC Handelsblad . The following years were unfavorable, so the national daily newspapers of the group lost a lot of their circulation, and some internet projects were stopped due to unsuccessfulness. In 2005 Knapen left the Executive Committee and returned to journalism as a correspondent in Jakarta for the NRC Handelsblad . A year earlier, Knapen had also been accepted into the foundation management of the University of Tilburg . From January 1, 2008 to October 14, 2010 he was a member of the Wetenschappelijke Raad voor het Regeringsbeleid (WRR) and also a professor at the Radboud University in Nijmegen .

Knapen has written various books in which he incorporated his journalistic fields (the Federal Republic of Germany in the early 1980s) and his origins as a historian (relations between the Netherlands and the Soviet Union 1917-42).

Ben Knapen is a member of the Roman Catholic Church .

Works

• Het Duitse onbehagen. Een land op zoek naar identiteit , Bert Bakker, Amsterdam 1983
• Long gone to Moscow. De Nederlandse relatie tot de Sovjet-Unie, 1917-1942 , Elsevier, Amsterdam 1985
• Nederland en omstreken, opstellen over desorientatie en democratie , Prometheus, Amsterdam 1995
• De man en zijn state. Johan van Oldenbarnevelt 1547–1619 , Bert Bakker, Amsterdam 2005

Web links

Commons : Ben Knapen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Dr. HPM (Ben) Knapen , Parlement & Politiek (ndl.)
• "Austerity measures alone are not enough" - Peter Riesbeck: Interview with Knapen in the Frankfurter Rundschau on the euro crisis (April 18, 2012)