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Femke Halsema | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Halsema in 2018 | |
| Mayor of Amsterdam | |
| Assumed office 12 July 2018 | |
| Preceded by | Jozias van Aartsen |
| Leader ofGroenLinks in theHouse of Representatives | |
| In office 26 November 2002 – 16 December 2010 | |
| Preceded by | Paul Rosenmöller |
| Succeeded by | Jolande Sap |
| Member of theHouse of Representatives | |
| In office 19 May 1998 – 12 January 2011 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1966-04-25)25 April 1966 (age 59) |
| Political party | GroenLinks |
| Spouse | Robert Oey (2002-2021) |
| Children | 2 |
| Residence(s) | Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Alma mater | Utrecht University |
| Website | Official website |
Femke Halsema (pronounced[ˈfɛmkəˈɦɑlsəmaː]ⓘ; born 25 April 1966) is a Dutch politician and filmmaker serving asMayor of Amsterdam since 2018. She is the first woman to hold the position on a non-interim basis. She previously was a member of theHouse of Representatives for the leftistgreen party,GroenLinks from 1998 to 2011, and served as the party'sparliamentary leader from 2002 to 2010.
Halsema was born in 1966 inHaarlem, the Netherlands, in a Dutchsocial democratic family. They moved toEnschede, a town in the east of the Netherlands, close to the German border (Twente). Her father W. Halsema was a sport teacher and director of the municipal service for physical education, sport and recreation (Dienst lichamelijke opvoeding, sport en recreatie) of Enschede.[1] For a long time, from 1982 until 1994, her mother Olga Halsema-Fles was analderwoman responsible for social affairs and employment for theLabour Party (PvdA) in Enschede. Her mother was also a member of the Dutch Social Insurance Advisory Board (College van Toezicht Sociale Verzekeringen).[2]
Halsema and her mother are of recentDutch Reformed Church descent. Halsema's mother Olga Margaretha Bertha Fles was born in 1941 in Velsen-Driehuis near harbour townIJmuiden north of Amsterdam.[3] Olga Fles' parents Cornelis Nicolaas Fles and Truus Corbee married in 1939 in the Noorsche Kerk,Nederlands Hervormd, a Dutch Protestant church in Hilligersberg, nearRotterdam.[4]
In a 2002 interview with theReformatorisch Dagblad (RD), a Dutch Protestant Christian Reformed newspaper, Halsema presumed members of her maternal family to have been "assimilated Jews", because two nephews of her maternal grandfather Cornelis Nicolaas Fles were named Abram and Izaak, whom she supposed had been tailors. Halsema referred to some families with the surname Fles in the region (Twente) Enschede being Jewish.[5] But Halsema's own family is not related to them.
Olga Halsema-Fles’ family originates from Leiden, with a few ancestors residing in Rotterdam, amongst whom Abram and Izaak Fles, her uncles.[6] Both Abram and Izaak Fles belonged to theNederlands Hervormde Kerk (Dutch Reformed Church). As such they were registered in the Rotterdam municipal archive. They worked as civil servants, married and died in 1961 in Rotterdam.[7]
Abram, Izaak and Jacob are common first names in Dutch Protestant churches, chosen from the Hebrew Bible, next to New Testament names. Abram and Izaak Fles belonged to the Nederlands Hervormde Kerk (Dutch Reformed Church), just like their father Izaak, a brother to Halsema's great-grandfather Cornelis Fles, and their grandfather was. Halsema's family tree in the maternal line shows, that all ancestors in this family Fles since the start of the 18th century were baptised in Leiden, a historical stronghold of Protestantism in the Netherlands. Before, in the 17th century all ancestors were baptised in Roman Catholic churches as was their first known forefather Johannes Fles (Flessinghe), born ca. 1640 in Sarbrug (Saarbrücken, Germany), who settled in Leiden, in Holland.[8]
Dutch historian Bart Wallet included Femke Halsema in a chapter on contemporary Dutch Jewry in an entirely revised edition (2017) of “Geschiedenis van de joden in Nederland" ("History of the Jews in the Netherlands").[9] But after some genealogical research in 2020 Wallet published an article in the Dutch Jewish internet magazineJonet "Waarom Femke Halsema toch niet joods is" ("Why Femke Halsema is not Jewish after all"), admitting his mistake, indicating he will correct this in the next edition of this book.[10] The article was reprinted in the DutchNieuw Israëlitisch Weekblad (New Israelitic Weekly).[11]
In 1983, Halsema graduated from the Kottenpark-college in Enschede with aHavo-diploma. Between 1984 and 1985 she attended theVrije Hogeschool (teachers program forWaldorf schools) in Driebergen. In 1985 she started training as a Dutch and history teacher inUtrecht. In 1988 she left her training without graduating. After that she worked for a year in a Utrecht café. She then started studying general social sciences atUtrecht University, specialising incriminology. During these studies she had a number of jobs related to her specialisation. Between 1991 and 1993, she was an intern at the working group "police and immigrants" at theMinistry of the Interior and she was a student assistant for professor Frank Bovenkerk.[12]
After Halsema graduated in 1993, she joined the staff of theWiardi Beckman Stichting (WBS), the research institute of the Labour Party. She was seen as a rising talent in the Labour Party.[13] In 1995, she published the bookOntspoord. Opstellen over criminaliteit & rechtshandhaving ("Derailed, essays about crime and law enforcement") for the WBS. In 1996, she travelled through theUnited States as a fellow for the German Marshall Fund. In 1996 she became an editor for theDe Helling, the magazine of the research institute ofGroenLinks. In the same year, she started combining her work at the WBS with work forDe Balie, a political and cultural centre in Amsterdam, where she metKees Vendrik, who before that worked for the GroenLinks in theHouse of Representatives. ForDe Balie, she led the project Res Publica about the meaning of theConstitution of the Netherlands for the modern society. She also joined the programme committee of the Labour Party for the 1998 election. She also published the bookLand in zicht: een cultuurpolitieke benadering van de Ruimtelijke Ordening ("Land ho, cultural-political essays about spatial planning") withMaarten Hajer. She was asked to be a candidate for the Labour Party in the 1998 election.[14]
In the autumn of 1997, Halsema left the Labour Party and the WBS. The direct cause was the authoritarian way in which the police had handled the protests against the European summit that was working on theTreaty of Amsterdam. The social democratic mayorSchelto Patijn had put 500 people in preventive detention.[14] Her dissatisfaction with the course of the Labour Party had grown. In her view the party was unable to renew its social democratic manifesto and use the rising economic tide to invest in the public sector.[14]
In the1998 election, Halsema was a candidate on the list of GroenLinks after being courted byPaul Rosenmöller.[15] She was the third candidate on the list, making her the highest new candidate and practically guaranteed her a seat in the House. The seventh was her formerDe Balie-colleague Vendrik. GroenLinks more than doubled its seat total from five to eleven. In her first period in the House, Halsema was spokesperson justice, asylum seekers and home affairs. She became well known due to her opposition to the tougher migration law proposed byJob Cohen.
In the2002 election, she was given the second place on the list. The party lost one seat. Halsema became vice-chair of the parliamentary party and among others spoke for the party in the first debate with theFirst Balkenende cabinet. In November of that year Paul Rosenmöller unexpectedly announced that he would leave politics. He asked Halsema to succeed him, and she immediately agreed. Ten days before the party congress she was announced as the only candidate for the party leadership and became top candidate for the2003 election.[16] The party lost another two seats. In addition to the party leadership she was spokesperson on areas of culture and media, healthcare, spatial planning and the environment. As party leader she had a more prominent position and put forth a number of private member's bills, including one concerningjudicial review and another that sets a fixed price for books (together with the leader of theDemocrats 66 (D66)Boris Dittrich).
Between October 2003 and January 2004, Halsema was on maternity leave. She gottwins.Marijke Vos, the vice-chair of the parliamentary party took over as party leader. After her return to the House of Representatives, Halsema started a debate about the course of the left in general and GroenLinks in particular. She claimed that her party was the last "left liberal party in the Netherlands".[17] She called for increased cooperation with theSocialist Party, the Labour Party and GroenLinks, aiming at a left-wing majority government after the 2007 election. She asked Labour Party leaderWouter Bos to speak out in favour of such a cabinet, but he refused in order to allow for a possible coalition of the Labour Party and theChristian Democratic Appeal. In January 2006, she was elected "Liberal of the Year" by theYouth Organisation Freedom and Democracy, the youth organisation of thePeople's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), because of her new political course, in particular where it came to reforming the welfare state.[18] In June 2006, she was the only candidate for the top spot on her party's list.[19] During the campaign, she publishedLinkse lente (Left-wing Spring), a book co-authored byMichiel Zonneveld, which blends her political vision and personal biography. In the2006 election the party lost another seat.
In 2007, she took over the private member's bill ofWijnand Duyvendak, who worked together withNiesco Dubbelboer of the Labour Party andBoris van der Ham of D66, to allow for a non-binding corrective referendum. In April 2010 the party congress voted against including the referendum in the party manifesto.
In the run-up to the 2010 elections, she was given the Thorbecke prize for political eloquence.[20] and she was elected by Intermediair as the best candidate for Prime Minister.[21]
During the2010 election, GroenLinks went from seven to ten seats. The party, under Halsema, negotiated with the VVD, the Labour Party and D66 to reach agreement on a new "Purple Plus"-government, but the negotiations failed.[22]
On 17 December 2010, Halsema announced that she would leave parliament and thatJolande Sap was elected as the new leader of GroenLinks. She formally left parliament in January 2011.
In 2016, she made public in her political memoirePluche (Plush) that after the2012 election she was asked to consider becoming minister of Development Cooperation byLodewijk Asscher, the Labour Party leader, but the VVD vetoed this.[23]
On 27 June 2018, Halsema was appointedMayor of Amsterdam and began serving a six-year term on 12 July 2018. She is the first woman to hold the position fully as Guusje ter Horst andKajsa Ollongren held the position previously in an ad interim manner (for 14 days in 2001 and 21 days in 2017 respectively).[24] Also, Halsema was a first GreenLeft member to become Amsterdam's mayor.
In the Netherlands, protests were also taking place on theDam on 1 June 2020 forGeorge Floyd. Halsema was criticised because of the crowd gathering and the 1.5 meter (5') safety issue fromCOVID-19, it was impossible to manage the 1.5 meter rule between the protesting citizens which was a must for safety reasons. Halsema was criticised on the Dutch news by a lot of people in themedical field for not taking action and lack of responsibility.[25] In Den Haag and Rotterdam, there were also protests but where the 1.5 meter safety measurement had been followed and the second protest became too crowded and further protests where cancelled and stopped.[26]
On 1 July 2021, Halsema apologised for the city's involvement in theAtlantic slave trade.[27]
In November 2024, Halsema expressed regret over her prior labeling of theNovember 2024 Amsterdam riots as a "pogrom". Halsema said that the term pogrom is being used as propaganda by Dutch politicians to discriminate against Moroccans and Muslims. Israeli Foreign MinisterGideon Sa'ar criticised Halsema, saying that her comment was "utterly unacceptable".[28]
After she left politics in January 2011, Halsema worked as freelancer.
Immediately after her political career, Halsema joinedDe Volkskrant, for which she wrote number of articles and columns in 2011 and 2012. In 2013, she was involved inDe Correspondent, for which she also wrote articles for two years.[29] In 2016 she wrote her political memoirPluche. In 2017 she wrote the EssayNergensland. Nieuw Licht op migratie ("Nowhereland. A new light on migration"), where she proposed a utopian alternative to the international refugee question.[30] In 2018 she wrote the essayMacht en Verbeelding ("Power and Imagination").[31]
In 2011, she became professor by special appointment atTilburg University occupying the Leonardo Chair for half a year.[32] She taught at theTilburg School of Humanities. In 2012 she became a temporary professor atUniversity of Utrecht, occupying the Peace of Utrecht Chair. She researched the meaning of social media for human rights and democracy.[33]
In December 2012, she led an inquiry into the behaviour of administrators at the school board ofAmarantis. She succeededMartin van Rijn, who had become junior minister of Health. The committee Halsema found that the board had acted within the law but that their behaviour was not desirable.[34] After that she led a committee on the governance code for the semi-public sector at the request of theMinister of Economic AffairsHenk Kamp[35] The final report of the committee concluded that a governance code would not lead to the desired culture change in the semi-public sector. The committee focused its attention on theold boys network and political cooperation.[36] In 2015 she was asked by employees and students at theUniversity of Amsterdam to lead the committee concerning the financial policy of the university. After a month she returned the assignment. The committee felt that elementary conditions were not met for independent, careful research.[37] Since January 2018, Halsema at the request of theCouncil of the Judiciary chair of the quadrennial review committee.[38]
Since 2011, Halsema has been President-Commissioner atWPG Uitgevers, which is among other responsible for the publisherDe Bezige Bij,Vrij Nederland andVoetbal International.[39] Since 2015 Halsema has been chair for the Trade Organisation for Healthcare for the Handicapped (VGN).[40] Because of that office she is chair of the Executive Consultation for Healthcare (BOZ), a partnership between employers' organisations and patients' organisations in the realm of healthcare.[41] In addition to this she has a number of functions in the public and private sector: between 2012 and 2014 she was chair of the Advisory Council ofASN Bank.[42][43] Since 2015 she is a member of the board the Start Foundation, a fund for people who have "distance to the labour market".[44] And since 2016 she has been a commissioner at Independer.[45] Additionally, Halsema has been a member of the executive of a number of non-profits: between 2011 and 2017 she was chair of the board ofStichting Vluchteling.[46] Since 2017, she has been chair of the board of Aidsfonds/Stopaidsnow.[47] She chairs the board ofAdelheid Roosen's theatre company[48] and of IDFA.[49]
In 2014, Halsema made the six-part documentary seriesSeks en de Zonde ("Sex and Sin") withHassnae Bouazza about women in the Islamic world. She interviewed activistsVeena Malik andSouad al-Shammary for this. Together withGijs van de Westelaken, she developed and produced the TV-seriesDe Fractie ("The Parliamentary Party") about politics in The Hague. Recently[when?] she has been working with her partner Robert Oey on a documentary series on terrorism.[50] In the Spring of 2017, she made a theatre tour with her theatre-lectureEen Vrij Land ("A Free Country").[51]
Halsema sees herself as aleft-liberal. In Dutch she prefersvrijzinnig (free-thinking) overliberaal (liberal) because theconservative liberalPeople's Party for Freedom and Democracy is seen as the pre-eminent liberal party. In 2004, she started a debate within her party about a new political course. Her new course emphasises two concepts: freedom and pragmatism.
With the conceptfreedom, Halsema seeks to connect herself with the "freedom-loving traditions of the left".[52] LikeIsaiah Berlin, Halsema discerns two traditions of freedom:negative andpositive liberty.[53] For Halsema negative liberty is the freedom of citizens from government interference. She wants to apply this concept especially to themulticultural society andrule of law, where she seeks to reduce the influence of government. Positive liberty is, according to Halsema, the emancipation of citizens from poverty. Halsema wants to apply this concept especially to the economy, thewelfare state and theenvironment, where the government should take more action.
Withpragmatism, Halsema has contrasted her politics with those of the new populist political right, such asPim Fortuyn. While the right, in Halsema's eyes, had become dogmatic and tried to reform society on the basis of new principles, Halsema claimed that the left has got more feeling for the "narrow margins of politics."[54] According to Halsema, the left has emphasised equitable outcomes, as opposed to merely fair-minded principles.
This new course has been integrated into several practical proposals on the economy, which together formVrijheid Eerlijk Delen ("Sharing Liberty Fairly"). These proposals have led to considerable debate.[55] Halsema proposes that the main goal of the welfare state should be the emancipation of citizens from poverty.[56] To ensure this, she proposes a new model for the welfare state, which is modelled on theDanish welfare state. In her perception of the welfare state, the government should endeavour to ensurefull employment by cutting taxes on labour, increasing labour flexibility and creating more government jobs. If there is more work, so this theory goes, everybody can get a job, after a maximum of one year of unemployment. She also called for the implementation of a partialbasic income.
Halsema married the TV documentary maker Robert Oey.[57] Oey made among others the filmDe Leugen (The Lie) in which Halsema participated amongst others by singing. On 20 December 2022 they announced that they had been separated for a year.[57] Their twin children are Bruno and Suzy.[58] Halsema resides in an official residence on Herengracht while Oey kept the house in Holysloot.[57]
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1 denotesActing Mayor –2 denotesAd Interim Mayor –3 denotes Died in Office | ||
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