Johannes Cornelis van Baalen was born on 17 June 1960 in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. He went to a public primary school in Krimpen aan den IJssel and to the high school Krimpenerwaard College in the same town, where he followed the havo and atheneum programs. He studied Dutch law and international law at Leiden University. During these student years, he was a member of the Minerva fraternity and the 'Pro Patria' student guard.
Political career
Van Baalen has been a member of the VVD since 1986. He was international secretary for the VVD party bureau from 1993 to 1998 and was an MP from 1999 until 2002. He was again made an MP in 2003. Before his political career he worked as a journalist and also with the public relations department of Deloitte Consulting. In the Dutch House of Representatives, Van Baalen was a member of the Foreign Affairs commission, European Affairs commission and the Defense commission. Beginning with the 2009 European elections, van Baalen was a member of European Parliament and faction leader of the Dutch VVD Delegation, and was generally seen as one of the most influential figures within the party. He served as a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and its Subcommittee on Security and Defence from 2009. On both committees, he was his parliamentary group’s coordinator. As substitute, he also served on the Committee on International Trade from 2014. In addition to his committee assignments, van Baalen served as chairman of the parliament’s delegation relations with South Africa. He was previously a member of the delegations with Afghanistan, the United States and Japan. In July 2018, van Baalen announced that he would not stand in the 2019 European elections but instead resign by the end of the parliamentary term.
Political positions
Relations with Russia and Ukraine
Van Baalen was a member of the European Parliament’s monitoring mission during the Ukrainian parliamentary elections in 2014, led by Andrej Plenković. With regard to the conflict with Russia over Ukraine, he argued for higher military spending and NATO involvement, and improved prospects for Ukraine to join the EU if its population so decided. In 2015, news media reported that van Baalen was included in a Russian blacklist of prominent people from the European Union who are not allowed to enter the country. In 2016 he received the UkrainianOrder of Merit Third Class, bestowed upon him by president Petro Poroshenko.
Car industry
Van Baalen worked until September 2015 as a lobbyist for the motoring organisation RAI and was on the supervisory board of Mercedes-Benz. Van Baalen reported those position to the European Parliament and indicated he refrained from involvement in car-related parliamentary business. In 2014 however, Van Baalen, in his capacity as member of European parliament called for standardized rules for the car industry in the European Union and the United States.
