Jaap De Hoop Scheffer
Secretary General, NATO
(NATO, Expandnato.org, New York Times, Wikipedia.org) |
The North Atlantic Council appointed Dutch Foreign Minister Jaap de Hoop Scheffer as NATO secretary general and Council chairman on 22 September 2003. De Hoop Scheffer assumed his post on 1 January 2004, succeeding Lord George Robertson of Britain. He is the third Dutchman to head the Alliance in its 54-year history.
De Hoop Scheffer was born in Amsterdam on 3 April 1948. He graduated in law from Leiden University in 1974. Over the next two years he performed his military service in the Royal Netherlands Air Force and was discharged as a reserve officer.
He joined the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1976, taking various positions during his ten-year diplomatic service. He served as secretary at the Dutch Embassy in Accra, Ghana, from 1976 to 1978 and was then posted to the Permanent Delegation to NATO in Brussels, where he was responsible for issues relating to defence planning. After completing his assignment in 1980, de Hoop Scheffer served as Private Secretary to four successive foreign ministers until 1986.
In the Dutch Parliamentary elections in June 1986, de Hoop Scheffer was elected to the House of Representatives on the ticket of the Christian Democratic Alliance (CDA) and became the party's spokesman on foreign policy in the House. He was also a member of parliament's permanent committees on justice, European affairs and defence and from 1989 to 1994 was chairman of the permanent committee on development co-operation.
From 1986 to 1994, de Hoop Scheffer was a member of the Parliamentary Assemblies of the Council of Europe and the Western European Union. During the following three years he was a member of the North Atlantic Assembly.
After serving for approximately two years as deputy leader of the CDA, de Hoop Scheffer took the party chairmanship in 1997. He resigned from the post in October 2001 and was succeeded by Jan Peter Balkenende. Following the CDA's victory in the May 2002 elections, de Hoop Scheffer was appointed Foreign Minister.
Welcoming de Hoop Scheffer's appointment as his successor, Lord Robertson said he is coming to the post at a time of radical transformation for NATO as it seeks to adapt to the new security environment. De Hoop Scheffer is "the right man to ensure NATO remains the world's most successful defence alliance", Robertson said.
De Hoop Scheffer is fluent in French, German and English. He is married and the father of two daughters.
