1. Frits Bolkestein became a member of the House of Representatives shortly after election of 1977 taking office on 16 January 1978 serving as a frontbencher and spokesman for Economic Affairs.
21 Facts About Frits Bolkestein
1. 2.
Frits Bolkestein was appointed Minister of Defence in the Cabinet Lubbers II following a cabinet reshuffle taking office on 24 September 1988.
3.
Shortly after the election, party leader and parliamentary leader Joris Voorhoeve announced he was stepping down and Frits Bolkestein announced his candidacy to succeed and was selected as his successor on 30 April 1990.
4.
Frits Bolkestein served as President of the Liberal International from 15 April 1996 until 18 April 2000.
5.
Frederik Frits Bolkestein was born on 4 April 1933 in Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
6.
Frits Bolkestein's father was president of the Court in Amsterdam.
7.
Frits Bolkestein's mother was born in the Dutch East Indies to Dutch parents.
8.
Frits Bolkestein attended the Barlaeus Gymnasium in Amsterdam from 1945 to 1951, where he majored in both arts and sciences.
9.
Frits Bolkestein went on to earn a BSc degree from The London School of Economics in 1963, and an LLM degree from Leiden University in 1965.
10.
Frits Bolkestein was a member of the board of the student union ASVA.
11.
In 1976, Frits Bolkestein wrote an English language play named Floris, Count of Holland, under the anagrammatic pseudonym of Niels Kobet.
12.
Frits Bolkestein left Shell in 1976 and became a member of parliament for the VVD.
13.
Frits Bolkestein was president of the Liberal International, the world federation of liberal political parties.
14.
Frits Bolkestein authored a number of books on politics and related subjects.
15.
Frits Bolkestein was until his death married to Femke Boersma, a retired Dutch actress.
16.
Frits Bolkestein died in Laren on 17 February 2025, at the age of 91.
17.
MEPs eventually reached a compromise on the text and the Parliament adopted it on 12 December 2006; 2 years after Frits Bolkestein left office, under the Barroso Commission.
18.
In 2001, Frits Bolkestein responded to the question raised by Members of the European Parliament Harlem Desir, Glyn Ford and Francis Wurtz, who asked the Commission to investigate the accusations brought forward by Revelation$, a book written by investigative journalist Denis Robert and former Clearstream member Ernest Backes, as well as to ensure that the 10 June 1990 directive on control of financial establishment be applied in all member states in an effective way.
19.
Commissioner Frits Bolkestein replied that "the Commission has no reason to date to believe that the Luxembourg authorities do not apply it vigorously" [sic].
20.
On 18 May 2010, Frits Bolkestein advocated for the legalization of all drugs in an article called; "Red het land, sta drugs toe" which translates to; "save the nation, allow drugs" in the NRC Handelsblad, a Dutch newspaper.
21.
In Het Verval, a book about Jews in the Netherlands written by Manfred Gerstenfeld, a Holocaust survivor and senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Frits Bolkestein is quoted as having said that practicing Jews had no future in the Netherlands, due to antisemitism among Turkish and particularly Moroccan immigrants, and that they should emigrate to the United States or Israel.