René van der Linden

Pierre René Hubert Marie van der Linden (born 14 December 1943) is a retired Dutch politician and diplomat of the Catholic People's Party (KVP) and later the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) and economist.

Van der Linden applied at the Catholic University Brabant in June 1964 majoring in Economics and obtaining a Bachelor of Economics degree in June 1966 and worked as student researcher before graduating with a Master of Economics degree in July 1970. Van der Linden worked as an economics teacher in Tilburg from April 1969 until July 1971. Van der Linden worked as a civil servant for the department of Food Quality of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries from July 1971 until January 1973 and served as Chief of staff for the European Commissioner of the Netherlands from January 1973 until January 1977 serving under Pierre Lardinois from January 1973 until January 1977 and for Henk Vredeling from January 1977 until June 1977.

Van der Linden was elected to the House of Representatives after the 1977 general election, taking office on 8 June 1977 serving as a frontbencher and spokesperson for European affairs and agriculture and deputy spokesperson for foreign affairs and Benelux. After the 1986 general election Van der Linden was appointed as State Secretary for Foreign Affairs in the Lubbers II cabinet, taking office on 14 July 1986. On 9 September 1988 Van der Linden resigned following the conclusions of a parliamentary inquiry report into a passport fraud investigation that was mishandled by his predecessor as State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Wim van Eekelen who was then serving as Minister of Defence and who had resigned four days earlier on 6 September 1988. Van der Linden returned as a Member of the House of Representatives following the appointment of Jeltien Kraaijeveld-Wouters as mayor of Hilversum, taking office on 29 November 1988 serving again as a frontbencher chairing the parliamentary committee for Foreign Affairs and spokesperson for foreign affairs, European affairs, agriculture and Benelux. In December 1997 Van der Linden announced that he would not stand for the 1998 general election and continued to serve until the end of the parliamentary term on 19 May 1998. Van der Linden remained in active in national politics, he was elected to the Senate after the 1999 Senate election, taking office on 8 June 1999 serving as a frontbencher chairing the parliamentary committee for European Affairs and spokesperson for foreign affairs and deputy spokesperson for agriculture and Benelux. Van der Linden also served as President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe from 1 January 2005 until 1 January 2008. Van der Linden also became active in the private sector and public sector and occupied numerous seats as a corporate director and nonprofit director on several boards of directors and supervisory boards (Atlantic Association, Robeco, Oxfam Novib, Trilateral Commission, Akkerbouw, Van Lanschot and Institute of International Relations Clingendael). Van der Linden also worked as a trade association executive for the Industry and Employers confederation (VNO-NCW) and as an education administrator for the Maastricht School of Management serving as Chairman of the Education board from October 1999 until November 2016. Van der Linden was nominated as President of the Senate following the appointed of Yvonne Timmerman-Buck as a Member of the Council of State, serving from 6 October 2009 until 28 June 2011. In November 2014 Van der Linden announced that he wouldn't stand for the Senate election of 2015 and continued to serve until the end of the parliamentary term on 9 June 2015.