de Hoop Scheffer, Jaap

▪ 2005

      With NATO struggling to overcome a fractious membership divided over the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, it chose Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, a career civil servant turned politician, to serve as its 11th secretary-general, beginning on Jan. 1, 2004. He was the third Dutchman to lead the 26-member alliance, succeeding Great Britain's George Robertson. The new secretary-general was regarded by his peers as a pragmatist rather than an ideologue. In his previous job as foreign minister, he had supported the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 but without contributing Dutch troops, a move that displayed solidarity with the United States without alienating France and Germany.

      Jakob Gijsbert de Hoop Scheffer was born in Amsterdam on April 3, 1948. He graduated with a degree in law from Leiden University (1974), having written his thesis on the U.S. military presence in Europe following World War II. He performed his obligatory military service with the Royal Netherlands Air Force from 1974 to 1976 and was discharged as a reserve officer.

      De Hoop Scheffer in addition to Dutch was fluent in English, French, and German. He honed his diplomatic skills in the foreign service. From 1976 to 1978 he worked at the Dutch embassy in Accra, Ghana; he then served with The Netherlands' permanent delegation to NATO in Brussels until 1980. Subsequently, he headed the private offices of four successive Dutch ministers of foreign affairs until 1986.

      He became involved in politics in 1979, joining the left-liberal D66 party (Democrats 1966, the year of its foundation), but he quit because it opposed cruise-missile deployment in Europe. In June 1986 de Hoop Scheffer sought public office as a candidate for the right-of-centre Christian Democratic Alliance (CDA) and was elected to the House of Representatives of the States General. He became the party's spokesman on foreign policy as well as refugee policy and European justice matters. He chaired the Permanent Committee on Development Cooperation from 1989 until 1994.

      Between 1997 and 2001 he was leader of the CDA during its time in opposition. A power struggle within the party in 2001 prompted his resignation as parliamentary leader. Following elections in May 2002, however, the CDA led a coalition government, and de Hoop Scheffer was named foreign minister by Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende. He was reappointed to that position following elections in January 2003.

Peter Saracino

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