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Eimert van Middelkoop

Minister of Defence

Eimert van Middelkoop was born in Berkel en Rodenrijs on 14 February 1949. 

After completing his secondary education, he studied sociology at the Netherlands School of Economics, now Erasmus University, Rotterdam. 

Mr Van Middelkoop was employed from 1971 to 1972 as a lecturer at the Reformed School of Social Work in Zwolle. From 1973 to 1989 he worked as an assistant for the parliamentary party of the Calvinist Political Union (GPV). From 1989 until 2002 he was a member of the House of Representatives of the States General, first for the GPV and from 2001 for the Christian Union, formed through a merger between the GPV and the Reformed Political Federation (RPF). He has been a member of the Senate of the States General since 2003. 

He has held numerous positions, in particular as member of the supervisory committee of the Social and Cultural Planning Office, chair of the interministerial policy review committee on task specialisation in European defence, secretary/treasurer of the Centre for Parliamentary History in Nijmegen, member of the Advisory Board of the East-West Parliamentary Practice Project, member of the feedback group of the Royal Netherlands Air Force, deputy chair of the Advisory Board of the Netherlands Institute of International Relations "Clingendael" and member of the Supervisory Council of the Institute for Multiparty Democracy. He has also been a freelancer for the Evangelical Broadcasting Association (EO) and a columnist for the Nederlands Dagblad. 

On 22 February 2007 Mr Van Middelkoop was appointed Minister of Defence in the fourth Balkenende government. On 23 February 2010, Mr Van Middelkoop was assigned responsibility for matters relating to Housing, Communities and Integration.

23 February 2010