Victor Larock

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Victor Larock (born October 6, 1904 in Ans ; † April 24, 1977 in Madrid ) was a Belgian socialist politician and in 1958 the first President of the Council of the European Communities .

Life

Studies and professional activities

The son of a miner received his doctorate in literature in 1926 after studying philosophy at the Imperial University of Liège . He then completed a degree in sociology in Paris , where he first came into contact with left-wing intellectuals. From 1932 to 1949 he was a lecturer in history at the Royal Athaneum of Ixelles / Elsene and at the same time at the Institut des Hautes Études in Ghent .

Political journalist and promotion to ministerial level

From 1935 to 1940 he was the editor of several left-wing magazines. Even after the occupation of Belgium by the German Wehrmacht in 1940 and a temporary arrest in 1941, he continued this activity. After the newspaper “Le Peuple” was banned in 1942, he became an employee of the banned office of the Socialist Party (BSP) . From 1944 to 1954 he was political director of the newspaper of the Socialist Party, "Le Peuple" .

At the first party congress of the BSP after World War II in 1945, Larock took a leading role and was elected a member of the National Bureau.

In 1949 he was elected a member of the Chamber of Deputies for Brussels and in this position spoke out against the return of King Leopold III during a parliamentary debate in 1950 . out. He was also a member of the Elsene Municipal Council from 1952 to 1968.

In 1951 Larock campaigned for the reconstitution of the Socialist International . After the founding congress in Frankfurt on June 30, 1951, he was elected to the board of directors until 1954.

Larock was first Minister of Foreign Trade from April 23, 1954 and then as the successor to Paul-Henri Spaak, who was elected NATO Secretary General , from May 13, 1957 to June 26, 1958, Foreign Minister in Achille Van Acker's cabinet . As such, he was first President of the Council of the European Communities in the first half of 1958 .

On April 25, 1961, he became Minister for National Education and Culture in Théo Lefèvre's cabinet . In this office he was the first socialist after a new school law was passed. However, the Flemish-speaking politician Renaat Van Elslande was assigned to him as a minister. In 1962 he became an independent Minister for Dutch Culture as well as an Associate Minister for National Education. On July 31, 1963, Larock resigned as minister in protest against the language law of the Socialist Minister of Home Affairs and Special Tasks Arthur Gilson .

Between 1965 and 1968 he was still chairman of the parliamentary group of the BSP in the Chamber of Deputies and, for a short time in 1964, president of the Socialist International. In 1971 he no longer ran for the Chamber of Deputies.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. https://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,811984,00.html