Jo Cals

Jo Cals (1966)

Jozef "Jo" Maria Laurens Theo Cals (born July 18, 1914 in Roermond , † December 30, 1971 in Wassenaar ) was a Dutch politician . From 1965 to 1966 he was Dutch Prime Minister as a member of the KVP .

Life

In his youth, Cals was an active member of the Boy Scout movement. He first went to Rolduc Abbey to train as a priest, but then moved to the Catholic University of Nijmegen in 1935 and studied law there. In 1940 he finished his studies and settled in Nijmegen as a lawyer. In 1941 he married a former college colleague with whom he later had three sons and two daughters (another son died early), and became an assistant to his father-in-law at the university. From 1943 to 1945 he was also a lecturer at Bisschoppelijk College in Roermond.

After the Second World War he began his political career and first became a member of the municipal council and in 1948 chairman of the local CIP parliamentary group. In the same year he entered the Second Chamber of the States General and became State Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Art and Science in March 1950 and finally Minister himself in September 1952, which he remained until July 1963. Cal's greatest official act was the so-called mammoth law on further education, which was drafted in 1963 but did not come into force until 1968. He then moved into parliament as a simple member, but after the end of the Marijnen cabinet he formed a three-party government made up of KVP, PvdA and ARP and was Prime Minister from April 14, 1965. In October 1966, a large part of the CIP parliamentary group together with the opposition parties CHU, VVD , SGP , BP and GPV voted in favor of a proposal put forward by Norbert Schmelzer to revise the draft budget. Cals took this as a vote of no confidence and resigned.

Despite this event, he remained loyal to the party as an exponent of the left wing and did not change to the split-off PPR founded in 1968 like other members of this wing . In December 1966, Cals was appointed Minister of State; In 1967 he was appointed chairman of the State Commission for the Constitution and Electoral Reform. In the last years of his life he was also a member of various organizations and commissions.

Honors

• Grand Cross in the Order of Orange-Nassau (1963)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ parlement.com: "Nacht van Schmelzer" , last accessed November 15, 2008 (Dutch)

Web links

Commons : Jo Cals  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Detailed biography (Dutch)
• List of all main and secondary functions (Dutch)