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Minister of Social Affairs and Employment
Jan Piet Hein (Piet Hein) Donner was born in Amsterdam on 20 October 1948.
After completing his secondary education he studied Dutch law at the VU University, Amsterdam, graduating in 1974. In 1974 and 1975 he did research at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in the United States.
From 1976 to 1981 he worked in the Foreign Economic Relations Department of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, and then as senior adviser at the Public Law Legislation Division of the Ministry of Justice until 1990. From 1982 to 1984 he was seconded to the House of Representatives of the States General to serve the Committee of Inquiry into government policy on the Rijn-Schelde-Verolme shipyard and engineering works.
In 1990 he was appointed a member of the Advisory Council on Government Policy (WRR), becoming its chairman in 1993. He was a member of the Council of State from 1998 to 2002.
In the past, Mr Donner has chaired the following organisations: the Centre for European Security Studies in Groningen, the Protestant association for the care of the mentally ill (Vereniging Bennekom), the council of the University of Utrecht research school on employment, welfare and socioeconomic governance, the Protestant Social Congress, the Inter-Church Council on Government Affairs and the committee established to address problems with the Invalidity Insurance Act. He has also sat on the boards or advisory committees of the CNV trade union federation, the University of Tilburg, the STIMO (which promotes socially responsible business practice among small and medium-sized enterprises), the Protestant Sports Union, the Asser Institute and the NCW trade union federation.
A member of the Christian Democratic Alliance (CDA), Mr Donner was the Minister of Justice in the first, second and third Balkenende governments from 22 July 2002 to 21 September 2006. From December 2006 until his appointment as Minister of Social Affairs and Employment in the fourth Balkenende government on 22 February 2007, he was a member of the House of Representatives for the CDA.
22 February 2007