Dick Schoof facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Dick Schoof
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Schoof in 2024
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| Prime Minister of the Netherlands | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Assumed office 2 July 2024 |
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| Monarch | Willem-Alexander | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Deputy |
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| Preceded by | Mark Rutte | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Personal details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born |
Hendrikus Wilhelmus Maria Schoof
8 March 1957 Santpoort, Netherlands |
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| Political party | Independent (2021–present) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Other political affiliations |
Labour Party (until 2021) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Spouse |
Yolanda Senf
(divorced) |
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| Domestic partner | Loes Meurs | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Children | 2 daughters | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Residences | Zoetermeer, Netherlands | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Alma mater | Radboud University (MSc) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Occupation |
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| Signature |  |
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Hendrikus Wilhelmus Maria "Dick" Schoof (Dutch: [ɦɛnˈdrikʏs ʋɪlˈɦɛlmʏs maˈrijaː dɪk sxoːf]; born 8 March 1957) is a Dutch politician and civil servant serving as the prime minister of the Netherlands since 2 July 2024.
Schoof previously served as secretary-general of the Ministry of Justice and Security from 2020 to 2024, as director-general of the General Intelligence and Security Service from 2018 to 2020, and as National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism from 2013 to 2018. He was director-general at the Ministry of Justice and Security from 2010 to 2013, and director-general for public order and safety at the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations from 2003 to 2010.
Contents
Early life and education
Hendrikus Wilhelmus Maria Schoof was born on 8 March 1957 in Santpoort into a Roman Catholic family as the second youngest of seven children (six sons and one daughter).
Schoof's father was a municipal civil servant, including for social services. At the age of eight, he moved with his family to Hengelo, where he attended Lyceum De Grundel. From 1975 to 1982, he studied urban and regional planning at Radboud University. He was a member of its rowing-oriented student association Phocas and served as its chair.
Early career
Schoof began his career as a policy advisor on education at the Association of Netherlands Municipalities, and became a civil servant at the Ministry of Education and Sciences in 1988. He helped dissolve the primary school construction department, which he headed, under State Secretary Jacques Wallage. He helped broker a compromise between the Christian Democratic Appeal and the Labour Party when both parties disagreed whether schools or municipalities should be responsible for the maintenance of school buildings.
From 1996, Schoof held various senior positions in the field of security. He served as deputy secretary-general at the Ministry of Justice and Security.
He was then appointed chief director of the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND) in 1999. The Netherlands was experiencing a relatively high influx of asylum seekers as a result of the Kosovo War, and the organization had a significant backlog of requests. Schoof was responsible for implementing reforms to the Aliens Act by State Secretary for Justice Job Cohen in 2001 that simplified the asylum procedure, and he worked to deport applicants that did not qualify. The number of asylum applications declined, which Schoof attributed to stricter migration policies. A later government evaluation concluded that the legislation had a more limited impact, suggesting that external factors were the primary drivers of the drop.
Schoof left the IND to become director-general for public order and safety at the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations in 2003. In that position, he was in charge of restructuring the police force from a number of regional organisations into a single National Police Corps.
National security career
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Schoof served as director-general at the Ministry of Justice and Security from 2010 to 2013.
In 2013 Schoof was appointed National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism (NCTV). Following the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in 2014 after it left Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, he coordinated the Dutch crisis response, strengthening his relationship with Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
Under Schoof's leadership, the NCTV was accused by civil rights group Bits of Freedom of carrying out illegal surveilliance of Dutch citizens, especially Muslims, on the internet. Starting in 2017, the NCTV launched a program of using private investigators to infiltrate mosques and spy on them. In 2019, an investigation by GeenStijl determined that Schoof ordered subordinates to create fake social media profiles to monitor "potential terrorists." He warned the education ministry and the municipality of Amsterdam that supporters of the Salafi movement were on the board of an Islamic school. He was found to have exerted pressure to attenuate the conclusions of the investigations.
Schoof led the General Intelligence and Security Service as director-general from 2018 to 2020. De Volkskrant wrote that his relatively short tenure was characterized by a culture clash. Schoof unsuccessfully tried to make the agency more outward facing, including through cooperations with institutions and universities.
On 1 March 2020, Schoof succeeded Siebe Riedstra as secretary-general of the Ministry of Justice and Security, the most senior non-political position within the ministry. In his role, he was involved in negotiations on asylum reform that led to the collapse of the fourth Rutte cabinet in July 2023. Upon reaching the legal retirement age in March 2024, Schoof chose not to retire and was granted an exemption to continue working for three more years.
Prime Minister (2024–present)
The Party for Freedom (PVV) of Geert Wilders won a plurality in the November 2023 general election. On 16 May 2024, the PVV presented a right-wing coalition agreement with the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), New Social Contract (NSC), and the Farmer–Citizen Movement (BBB). As part of the negotiations, the four party leaders agreed none of them would serve as prime minister. The PVV had initially proposed Ronald Plasterk for the position, but he withdrew from consideration due to accusations of fraud. Schoof was subsequently nominated for the office of prime minister on 28 May 2024 by the coalition parties under formateur Richard van Zwol. He was sworn in on 2 July by King Willem-Alexander as part of the Schoof cabinet, and he became the first independent politician to serve as prime minister since Cort van der Linden (1913–1918).
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Schoof presented the cabinet's governing agreement on 13 September 2024, expanding on the outline of the coalition agreement. It reiterated the cabinet's intention to declare an asylum crisis, bypassing initial parliamentary approval. Schoof stated that citizens were experiencing an asylum crisis but said he was unable to specify conditions or a timeline for its resolution. When documents by civil servants took the position that using emergency powers lacked legal justification, Nicolien van Vroonhoven (NSC) raised concerns, while Wilders warned that the cabinet could face trouble if an emergency law was not enacted. Schoof subsequently facilitated negotiations between the coalition parties, and an agreement on asylum measures was reached in October 2024 that excluded the use of emergency powers.
Personal life
Schoof lives in Zoetermeer with his partner, Loes Meurs, who is a psychologist active in the Hague and a former policy advisor for the Custodial Institutions Agency. Schoof and his ex-wife, Yolanda Senf, share two daughters born in the 1990s who were adopted from China. Schoof's older brother Nico Schoof is a former mayor of the municipalities of Akersloot, Limmen, Heiloo, and Alphen aan den Rijn for the Democrats 66 party. Schoof was raised Catholic. He has called himself a non-practising Catholic, and he stopped attending church at the age of 16.
He enjoys running, and completed his first marathon in 1987 and his 18th marathon in 2024. As prime minister, Schoof completed a half marathon in Amsterdam in 1:53:00 under the alias "Peter Jansen".
