Parents Wabina Andreae | Preceded by Position established Name Sicco Mansholt | |
 | ||
Similar People Willem Drees, Henri Polak, Henri van Kol | ||
Succeeded by Francois-Xavier Ortoli | ||
Founding fathers of the european union sicco mansholt
Sicco Leendert Mansholt ( [ˈsɪkoː ˈleːndərt ˈmɑnsɦɔlt]; 13 September 1908 – 29 June 1995) was a Dutch politician who served as the 4th President of the European Commission from 1972 to 1973. He is recognised as one of the founding fathers of the European Union. He served as European Commissioner for Agriculture from 1958 to 1972, Minister of Agriculture, Fishing and Food Supply of the Netherlands from 1945 to 1958, Minister of Economic Affairs of the Netherlands in 1948 and Acting Mayor of Wieringermeer in 1945. He was a member of the Member of the House of Representatives on serveral occasions.
Contents
- Founding fathers of the european union sicco mansholt
- SYND 3 1 73 RETIRING EEC PRESIDENT SICCO MANSHOLT IS INTERVIEWED IN LONDON
- Early life and studies
- Agriculture
- Local politics
- Minister of Agriculture
- European Commission
- Life after politics
- References
A member of the Labour Party (PvdA), Mansholt was a farmer who entered politics in the late 1930s. During World War II, when the Netherlands was occupied by Nazi Germany, he was involved in the Dutch Resistance and witnessed the Dutch famine of 1944. After the war, he was offered a position as Minister of Agriculture, Fishing, and Food Supply (1945–1958). He later became European Commissioner for Agriculture (1958–1972), and fourth President of the European Commission (1972–1973). He was one of the architects of the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union.
SYND 3-1-73 RETIRING EEC PRESIDENT SICCO MANSHOLT IS INTERVIEWED IN LONDON
Early life and studies
Sicco Leendert Mansholt was born on 13 September 1908 in Ulrum, Groningen, Netherlands.
Mansholt came from a socialist farmer's family in the Dutch province of Groningen. Both his father and grandfather were supporters of early socialist leaders such as Multatuli, Domela Nieuwenhuis, and Troelstra. His father, Lambertus H. Mansholt, was a delegate for the socialist SDAP party in the Groningen provincial chamber. His mother, Wabien Andreae, daughter of a judge in Heerenveen, was one of the first women to have studied Political Science. She organised political meetings for other women, usually in their own homes.
Together with two brothers and two sisters, Mansholt was raised at "Huis ter Aa," a grand villa in Glimmen. He attended the HBS-school in Groningen and after that went to Deventer, to the School of Tropical Agriculture, where he studied to become a tobacco farmer.
Agriculture
He moved to Java in the Dutch East Indies, nowadays Indonesia, and started work on a tea plantation.
He returned to the Netherlands in 1936, unhappy with the colonial system. He wanted to become a farmer and moved to the Wieringermeer, a polder, reclaimed in 1937. There he started his own farm.
He married Henny J. Postel in 1938, and they had two sons and two daughters.
In the years of the Second World War he was an active member of the Resistance. He helped people who were in acute danger to hide in the Wieringermeerpolder; he organised clandestine food distributions for the western provinces.
Local politics
Mansholt became a member of the Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP) in 1937, as a secretary of the local party. He had several public functions for the SDAP in Wieringermeer, including that of acting mayor of the Wieringermeer community.
Minister of Agriculture
Immediately after the war, in June 1945, socialist Labour Party (PvdA) Prime Minister Schermerhorn asked him to take a seat in his cabinet as minister of Agriculture, Fishery and Food Distribution. He was the youngest member of a cabinet, aged only 36.
He was a member of 6 cabinets in total: Schermerhorn-Drees in 1945; Beel in 1946; Drees-Van Schaik in 1948, and another three Drees administrations: 1951, 1952 and 1956. As Minister of Agriculture during this time, he was one of the key architects of the EC's Common Agricultural Policy. In 1954 the parliamentary debate about the budget for the Department of Agriculture was postponed: the Minister was ice-skating the 200 kilometer long Elfstedentocht in the Dutch province of Friesland, which he skated twice in his life.
European Commission
In 1958, he became one of the Commissioners of the new European Commission. He was Commissioner for Agriculture and vice-president of the institution. He modernized European agriculture.
He became President of the European Commission on 22 March 1972 (Mansholt Commission) and continued in that position until 5 January 1973. It was around that time he was heavily under the influence of Club of Rome.
Life after politics
Mansholt published his autobiography De Crisis (The Crisis) in 1974.
He lived his last years in an old historic farm in the quiet village of Wapserveen, where he died on 29 June 1995.
His daughter Lideke also died in 1995, aged 53.