Home > Ruud Lubbers

Lubbers was born in Rotterdam. He studied economics at the Erasmus University Rotterdam and was a student of the first Nobel Prize Laureate in economics Jan Tinbergen. He started his career as a minister for Economic Affairs in the cabinet of Prime Minister Joop den Uyl, 1973-1977. He was an effective, if sometimes somewhat bad-tempered minister. His career got an unexpected boost when the leader of the parliamentary faction of the CDA, Willem Aantjes , had to resign in 1978 on accusations that he served in the Germanic-SS during the Second World War. Lubbers took over the position of Aantjes and suddenly found himself in a powerful political position.

In 1982 after the general election won by Prime Minister Dries van Agt, a similar thing happend when Van Agt suddenly announced he would not be available for a third term. Lubbers took over the post, a position he held until 1994, making him the longest serving prime minister in the history of The Netherlands.

Major aspects of his time in office:

• Extensive cutbacks in public spending
• The launch of far-reaching deregulation and privatizationPrivatization (sometimes: denationalization privatisation or — especially in India — disinvestment is the economic process of transferring property, from public ownership to private ownership. An opposite process is nationalization. In theory, privatizati programs
• A massive demonstration in The HagueThis article is about the city in the Netherlands; there is also a region known as (the) Hague in France. The Hague ( Dutch: Den Haag or officially 's-Gravenhage is the administrative capital of the Netherlands, located in the west of the country, in the ( 1983Events January January 1 Beat Raaflaub became Basel Boys Choir's new conductor January 1 the ARPANET officially changes to use the Internet Protocol, creating the Internet. January 1 compulsory wearing of seat belts becomes law in the UK. January 2 The mu) against the planned installation in the Netherlands of nuclear-armed US cruise missileA cruise missile is a guided missile which uses a lifting wing and most often a jet propulsion system to allow sustained flight. Cruise missiles are, in essence, unmanned aircraft. They are generally designed to carry a large conventional or nuclear warhes (which was cancelled after all due to arms reduction talks between the US and the Soviet Union)

After leaving office, was put forward as a candidate for the head of NATOThe North Atlantic Treaty Organisation NATO , sometimes called North Atlantic Alliance Atlantic Alliance or the Western Alliance is an international organization for defense collaboration established in 1949, in support of the North Atlantic Treaty signed, but the US vetoed his appointment.

On January 1January 1 is the first day of the calendar year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. Here a calendar year refers to the order in which the months are displayed, January to December. The first day of the medieval Julian year was usually a day other, 20012001 is a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar), and also: The International Year of the Volunteer The United Nations Year of Dialogue Among Civilizations Events January January 1 A black monolith measuring approximately nine feet tall ap he became the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. In October 2003, his three year term was extended for another two years, to December 31, 2005. He annually donates some $300,000 to the refugee agency since he assumed his post in 2001, an amount roughly equivalent to his salary and expenses.