Jeroen Dijsselbloem

Jeroen René Victor Anton Dijsselbloem (born 29 March 1966) is a Dutch politician and economist serving as Mayor of Eindhoven since 13 September 2022, succeeding John Jorritsma (VVD).

Jeroen René Victor Anton Dijsselbloem was born on 29 March 1966 in Eindhoven, Netherlands.

His parents were both schoolteachers.

He was raised as a Roman Catholic.

Dijsselbloem went to a Roman Catholic primary school in Son en Breugel and the Catholic secondary school Eckartcollege (1978–85) in Eindhoven.

Dijsselbloem’s interest in politics began in 1983, spurred by the mass protests against U.S. Pershing cruise missiles that drew hundreds of thousands of Dutch youth into leftwing movements.

He studied at the Wageningen University between 1985 and 1991, where he obtained an engineer's degree ("ingenieur") in agricultural economics in 1991, majoring in business economics, agricultural policy, and social and economic history.

In 1985, he became a member of the Labour Party (PvdA).

Dijsselbloem subsequently did research in business economics at the University College Cork (1991) in Ireland, but he did not graduate from this university.

From 1993 to 1996 he worked for the parliamentary group of the Labour Party.

From 1994-96 he was a member of the municipal council of Wageningen.

From 1996 to 2000 he worked at the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Fishery under Minister Jozias van Aartsen and State secretary Geke Faber.

From 2000 to 2012, Dijsselbloem was elected to the House of Representatives for the Labour Party, with a brief interruption after the 2002 general elections where the Labour Party suffered a major defeat.

He reentered the lower house in November that year due to Peter Rehwinkel's resignation.

In 2007, he led a parliamentary inquiry on education reform.

He focused on matters of youth care, special education and teachers.

Dijsselbloem was Minister of Finance in the Second Rutte cabinet, serving from 5 November 2012 to 26 October 2017.

Following the resignation of Job Cohen as party leader and parliamentary leader of the Labour Party in the House of Representatives on 20 February 2012, he became the interim parliamentary leader, serving until 20 March 2012 when Diederik Samsom was elected as the next party leader of the Labour Party.

On 15 November 2012, Dijsselbloem was appointed by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands to serve as Minister of Finance in the Second Rutte cabinet.

From the start, Dijsselbloem emphasised his commitment to fiscal discipline.

He also served as President of the Eurogroup from 21 January 2013 to 12 January 2018 and President of the Board of Governors of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) from 11 February 2013 until 12 January 2018.

On 1 February 2013, he nationalized the financial institution SNS Reaal, preventing its bankruptcy.

Shareholders and owners of subordinated debt are expropriated with no compensation and others banks of the country have to contribute to the takeover up to one billion euros.

By December 2013, Dutch press named Dijsselbloem politician of the year, describing him as "intelligent, balanced and good at finding compromises".

In a response, he said that he was surprised about winning the prize because he "does not work on the forefront".

On 21 January 2013, Dijsselbloem took office as President of the Eurogroup, a grouping of the Ministers of Finance of the Eurozone, those member states of the European Union (EU) which have adopted the euro as their official currency; he succeeded Jean-Claude Juncker.

Spain was the only country not to back his candidacy.

Dijsselbloem struggled early in his two and a half-year term and faced criticism for his handling of the "Cyprus bail-in."

In March 2013, he took the lead in the negotiation, conclusion and subsequent public promotion of the bailout.

He attracted criticism for the precedent of taking depositors' balances as part of bank rescues but said "I am pretty confident that the markets will see this as a sensible, very concentrated and direct approach instead of a more general approach... It will force all financial institutions, as well as investors, to think about the risks they are taking on because they will now have to realise that it may also hurt them."

On 24 March 2013, the Financial Times and Reuters reported that Dijsselbloem saw the Cyprus bail-in as a template for resolution of a bankruptcy.

However, it was the interviewer that had used the word "template" and not Dijsselbloem himself.

On 26 March 2013, Dijsselbloem said explicitly that he did not consider the Cyprus case to be a template.

In the Netherlands, he was later named as a possible European Commissioner following the 2014 European elections; the post instead went to Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans.

As Eurogroup head, Dijsselbloem later represented European creditors in negotiations with Greece over its bailout packages following Syriza's victory in the January 2015 legislative election.

Initially the Greek government formed by Syriza and the Independent Greeks pursued bilateral talks with creditors and later the Eurogroup agreed on an extension of the bailout for four months.

He was succeeded as Minister of Finance by Wopke Hoekstra (Christian Democratic Appeal) on 26 October 2017.

He resigned from the House of Representatives the day before, while having been reelected during the 2017 Dutch general election in March; William Moorlag entered the States General to fill the vacancy.

A member of the Labour Party (PvdA), he has also been Chairman of the supervisory board of Wageningen University since 1 April 2019.

He was successively Chairman of the Dutch Safety Board from 1 May 2019 to September 2022.