Dries van Agt

This article deals with the Dutch politician Dries van Agt; for the meanings of the abbreviations AGT and agT, see AGT .

Dries van Agt, 1980

Dries van Agt 2011 with Prime Minister Mark Rutte

Andreas Antonius Maria (Dries) van Agt (born February 2, 1931 in Geldrop ) is a Dutch politician of the Christian Democrats . He was Prime Minister from 1977 to 1982 .

Life

Van Agt was born in 1931 as the son of a textile manufacturer in Geldrop ( Noord-Brabant ). After graduating from high school at the Augustinianum in Eindhoven , he studied law at the Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen (now Radboud University ) and received his doctorate there in 1955. He was then a lawyer in Eindhoven until 1957 and then worked in the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries until 1962 and then until 1968 in Ministry of Justice. From 1968 to 1971 he was professor of criminal procedural law at the Catholic University of Nijmegen.

From 1995 to 1996 he was a visiting professor for international relations at the University of Kyoto in Japan.

Van Agt's predilection for cycling is well known .

politics

From July 6, 1971 to May 11, 1973 he was Minister of Justice in the Biesheuvel cabinet for the Catholic People's Party (KVP) and then also Deputy Prime Minister in the Den Uyl cabinet until December 19, 1977.

Van Agt was sometimes at the center of violent arguments, for example when he tried to close the Bloemenhove abortion clinic on his own initiative, or because of his clumsy demeanor in the so-called “ Menten affair”, in the course of which he almost had to resign. In 1972 he sparked indignation when he tried to pardon three Nazi war criminals imprisoned in Breda . In a press conference, he said that the punishment of war criminals meant little to him for two reasons: "Firstly, I am too young, have never suffered in the war, and secondly, I am Aryan." This sparked even greater outrage and after demonstrations against the decision van Agt explained about the pardon: "If I had known how many emotions are still awake - I would not have suggested the pardon."

On December 19, 1977, he became Prime Minister of the Netherlands and until November 4, 1982, he headed three cabinets. In the second cabinet there was another encounter with Joop den Uyl , who then had to serve as vice-premier and super-minister for social affairs under van Agt. The character and political differences and arguments were so great that van Agt was refused entry to the Uyls funeral by his family in 1987.

From 1982 to 1983 van Agt was a member of the Second Chamber and then until 1987 the Queen's representative in the province of Noord-Brabant. From 1987 to 1989 he represented the European Community in Japan and until 1995 in the USA . Since March 2009 he has been involved in the newly established Russell Tribunal on the Palestine question . For several years he has been exposed as a fierce opponent of Israel and its policy towards Palestinians.

literature

• Andreas AM van Agt , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 02/1995 from January 2, 1995, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Web links

Commons : Dries van Agt  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Mr. AAM (Dries) van Agt , Parlement & Politiek

Individual evidence

1. ↑ NETHERLANDS: A valley of tears . In: Der Spiegel . No. 52 , 1977 ( online ).