Hans van Baalen, who oversaw Europe’s principal alliance of liberal events throughout a surge within the liberal European Parliament presence, died of most cancers on Thursday. He was 60 years previous.
His loss of life was introduced by the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) Occasion, which van Baalen has led for the final six years.
“It’s with profound disappointment and with a heavy coronary heart that we announce that Mr. Hans van Baalen, ALDE Occasion President, handed away peacefully within the late hours of Thursday 29 April, after a brief sickness,” Jacob Moroza-Rasmussen, ALDE Occasion secretary-general, stated in a assertion. “He was 60 years previous, and is survived by his spouse Ineke and son Robert.”
An ALDE spokesperson confirmed to POLITICO that the sickness was most cancers.
A former member of the Dutch parliament, van Baalen later spent 10 years as an MEP for Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s Individuals’s Occasion for Freedom and Democracy (VVD).
In 2015, he took over as president of the ALDE Occasion, incomes a fame in Brussels for orchestrating the expansion of liberal teams throughout the European Parliament. Throughout his tenure, ALDE regained its earlier place because the third-biggest power within the Parliament, after the European Individuals’s Occasion and the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats.
Following the announcement of van Baalen’s loss of life, Rutte paid tribute to his buddy.
Van Baalen, Rutte stated, “performed a decisive function within the monumental development of the liberal group within the European Parliament.”
Rutte stated their ties return many years, to 1993, including: “I cherish our friendship.”
On Friday, different outstanding liberal figures in Brussels and Amsterdam reacted to van Baalen’s loss of life.
Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo known as him “a colourful determine whose enthusiasm and method performed an vital function in strengthening ties between European liberal events in recent times.” And European Fee Government Vice President Margrethe Vestager described him as “the kindest man and probably the most devoted European.”
In the meantime, Man Verhofstadt, an MEP and former Belgian prime minister, praised van Baalen for being a “artful compromise maker within the European Parliament” and “a trusted president of the ALDE Occasion.”
“A real liberal coronary heart,” Verhofstadt added.