Eelco Heinen was born on 27 April 1981 and is a Dutch politician serving since 2 July 2024 as the Minister of Finance.
16 Facts About Eelco Heinen
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Eelco Heinen was born in 1981 in the North Holland town Laren and studied computer science at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences from 1998 until 2002.
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Eelco Heinen became a policy officer at the Ministry of Finance in 2007.
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Between 2011 and 2014, Heinen worked as senior finance policy advisor for the VVD's House caucus and was promoted to political secretary and head of policy in the latter year.
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Eelco Heinen served as a member of the campaign team for the 2017 election and helped write the election program.
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Eelco Heinen was again member of the campaign team and of the election program committee.
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Eelco Heinen's specialties were government budget, European and international monetary policy, financial markets, financial supervision, state participation, government expenditure, macroeconomic policy, European economic policy, and National Growth Fund, and he was on the Committees for Economic Affairs and Climate Policy, European Affairs, Finance, and Public Expenditure.
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When prices of petrol were on the rise, Eelco Heinen proposed to bring a planned increase in the tax-exempt traveling allowance forward in time.
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Eelco Heinen complained about spending by the cabinet without the House's approval.
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The cabinet has this power in case of a crisis, but Eelco Heinen decried their repeated use of the provision.
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Eelco Heinen later filed an amendment to only allow usage if the House agreed with the cabinet's reasoning of necessity.
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Eelco Heinen was sworn in as Minister of Finance in the resulting Schoof cabinet on 2 July 2024, succeeding Steven van Weyenberg.
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One particular comparison about antisemitism being more stubborn than a pustule, supposedly made by Eelco Heinen, was among those circulating in the media.
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Eelco Heinen has advocated for the further integration of capital markets in the European Union to increase private investments, calling it the continent's only way to stir economic growth.
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Eelco Heinen has been critical of Eurobonds, proposed government bonds jointly issued by member states, arguing that they would lead to higher debts, low growth, and protectionism.
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Eelco Heinen has a Spanish wife called Ines, and they have two sons.