1. Wopke Hoekstra left the cabinet in September 2023 to succeed Frans Timmermans as European Commissioner for Climate Action in the first von der Leyen commission, and he stayed in his role when the second von der Leyen Commission was inaugurated in December 2024.
Wopke Hoekstra studied law at Leiden University from 1994 and obtained his LLM degree in 2001.
Wopke Hoekstra studied history at this university for one year, in which he received a propaedeutic diploma in 1997.
Wopke Hoekstra took elective courses in law and economics at LUISS in Rome in 2000, before he obtained an MBA degree at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France and Singapore in 2005.
Wopke Hoekstra was chairman of the supervisory board of the National Maritime Museum in Amsterdam and ambassador for the Prinses Maxima Centrum for pediatric oncology.
Wopke Hoekstra was the treasurer of the CDA-affiliated foundation Eduardo Freistichting and board member of the local CDA association in Amsterdam.
In December 2010, it was announced that Wopke Hoekstra was a candidate for the Senate election of 2011, for which he was indeed elected, and sworn in on 7 June 2011 as its youngest member.
Wopke Hoekstra was not reluctant to deviate from the party line on a number of ethical issues: he was the only CDA senator to vote in favour of a ban on civil servants refusing to marry same-sex couples and to vote in favour of legal status for lesbian parents.
Ahead of the 2017 general election, Wopke Hoekstra helped write the CDA's manifesto.
Wopke Hoekstra was nominated by the parliamentary press in 2013 as 'political talent of the year' and in 2016 he was the second-youngest person in the De Volkskrant top-200 of influential Dutch people.
Wopke Hoekstra was appointed Minister of Finance in the third Rutte cabinet on 26 October 2017, succeeding Jeroen Dijsselbloem.
At his first meeting with other EU Ministers of Finance in Brussels in 2017, Wopke Hoekstra expressed scepticism about eurozone reform, saying that budgetary discipline in other eurozone states was necessary first.
Wopke Hoekstra reiterated his reluctance on eurozone reform at a meeting of the financial council of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany in 2018, warning against reforms initiated by Germany and France without the support of other member states or the public.
Furthermore, at a visit to his German counterpart Olaf Scholz in March 2018, Wopke Hoekstra explained that he is reluctant about plans for an eurozone budget, an eurozone finance minister and a common deposit insurance scheme.
In January 2019, Wopke Hoekstra criticised the European Commission for its decision not to launch a disciplinary procedure against Italy over its deficit and debt, stating "It's a missed opportunity to do the right thing for the long run", a concern later repeated by Prime Minister Mark Rutte at the World Economic Forum.
Wopke Hoekstra has expressed his opposition to an increase in the Netherlands' contribution to the EU budget as a result of Brexit.
In 2019, Wopke Hoekstra joined forces with his counterparts of Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Latvia in pushing for the establishment of new EU supervisory authority that would take over from states the oversight of money laundering at financial firms.
On 31 October 2020, Wopke Hoekstra stated that the Dutch government would not provide further financial assistance to KLM as long as it did not agree with financial sacrifices by all employees for a period of five years.
On 11 December 2020, a day after Hugo de Jonge announced his resignation as Leader of the Christian Democratic Appeal, the party's board unanimously nominated Wopke Hoekstra to succeed him.
On 15 January 2021, Wopke Hoekstra stepped down along with the Dutch government, after thousands of families were wrongly accused of child welfare fraud.
On 2009, leaked documents show that Wopke Hoekstra obtained shares in an offshore company, Candace Management Ltd.
Wopke Hoekstra acquired more shares in 2013 and 2014, while he was a senator.
On 10 January 2022, Wopke Hoekstra was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister in the fourth Rutte cabinet.
The cabinet fell on the 7th of July 2023 and directly after this Wopke Hoekstra announced that he would not lead the CDA party into the 2023 Dutch general election.
On 5 October 2023, Wopke Hoekstra was finally voted into office by a simple majority in the European Parliament.
Wopke Hoekstra was the EU's main negotiator at a United Nations Climate Change Conference in Dubai the following month, at which participating countries agreed to shift away from using fossil fuels.
Wopke Hoekstra later complained that Chinese state-sponsored manufacturers were flooding the European market for renewable energy products such as solar panels, electric vehicles, and electrolysers, and he said that action had to be taken.