Pieter Omtzigt | |
|---|---|
 Omtzigt in 2019 | |
| Leader ofNew Social Contract | |
| Assumed office 19 August 2023 | |
| Preceded by | Position established |
| Member of theHouse of Representatives | |
| Assumed office 26 October 2010 | |
| In office 3 June 2003 – 17 June 2010 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Pieter Herman Omtzigt (1974-01-08)8 January 1974 (age 51) The Hague,Netherlands |
| Political party | NSC (2023–present) |
| Other political affiliations | CDA (until 2021) Independent (2021–2023) |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 4 |
| Education | University of Exeter (BA) European University Institute (PhD) |
| Signature |  |
Pieter Herman Omtzigt (Dutch pronunciation:[ˈpitərˈɦɛrmɑnˈɔmtsɪxt]; born 8 January 1974) is a Dutch politician who has served as a member of theHouse of Representatives since 2003 apart from a short interruption between June and October 2010.[1] He was a member of theChristian Democratic Appeal (CDA), but left in 2021 and continued as an independent.[2] In August 2023, he founded a new party calledNew Social Contract, its name taken from his2021 manifesto.[3] Three months later, his party won 20 out of 150 seats in the2023 Dutch general election.
In his political work, Omtzigt focuses on matters oftaxes andpensions. He rose to prominence for his role in bringing attention to thechildcare benefits scandal.[4]
Omtzigt was born inThe Hague, Netherlands in 1974, as one of twins. His father Jan Omtzigt (1939–2019) was a civil servant at the Dutch state telecommunications companyPTT and later director of a Roman Catholic retirement house inZenderen.[5] When he was four years old, Omtzigt moved with his parents and brothers fromWassenaar toBorne.[6] He attended thegymnasium school inHengelo.
From 1992 to 1996, Omtzigt studied at theUniversity of Exeter (Devon, England), where he obtained hisBA degree inEconomics andStatistics withEuropean Studies. In the meantime, he did a student exchange program at theLUISS University (Rome, Italy) from 1994 to 1995. During his studies, Omtzigt was also a board member of the youth department of the Dutch Christian trade unionCNV between 1991 and 1993. He performed his doctoral research at theEuropean University Institute (Florence, Italy), where he obtained aPhD in Economics in 2003, with the dissertation titledEssays in Cointegration Analysis.[7] Omtzigt was a researcher at theUniversity of Insubria (Varese, Italy) from 2000 to 2002. From 2002 he was a post-doctoral researcher at the Quantitative Economics department of theUniversity of Amsterdam.[8]
In parliament, Omtzigt currently serves on the Committees on European Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Housing and Kingdom Services, Social Affairs and Employment, Finance and Public Expenditure. From 2017, he served as the parliament'srapporteur onBrexit.[9]
From 2019, Omtzigt, together with Member of ParliamentRenske Leijten (SP), stood up for affected parents in thechildcare benefits scandal in which more than 20,000 families were wronged when applying for childcare allowance. In the end, civil servants and (former) ministers were heard by the parliamentary questioning committee on Childcare Allowance, which ultimately led to the fall of thethird Rutte cabinet in January 2021.
In July 2020, Omtzigt was defeated byDeputy Prime MinisterHugo de Jonge in a vote for the position ofleader of the Christian Democratic Appeal. Omtzigt was re-elected in the2021 general election, winning 342,472 preference votes, more than any other non-party leader.[10] Following the election, Omtzigt took time off, after complaining of exhaustion.[11] Despite his leave, he decided to attend his installation on 31 March 2021.[12]
On 25 March 2021, confidential notes from thegovernment formation were revealed to include, among other things, "position Omtzigt, function elsewhere" (Dutch:"positie Omtzigt, functie elders").[13] This prompted a heated debate in parliament and an impasse in the government formation.[14] Amid the continuous news, Omtzigt took a formal leave of absence of four months starting on 25 May. He was temporarily replaced as a member of parliament byHenri Bontenbal.[15]
On 10 June 2021, a 78-page memo by Omtzigt was leaked, addressed to the CDA'sSpies-committee that analysed the results of the parliamentary elections of March 2021. Omtzigt lashed out hard at the CDA, group employees and CDA members of parliament (who were not named), and wrote that he was promised the leadership of the party ifHugo de Jonge would withdraw as party leader. After De Jonge's departure, however, the party leadership was offered toWopke Hoekstra. According to Omtzigt, that was completely beyond his control. According to Omtzigt, political party members and members of the House of Representatives have described him as a "psychopath, sick man, rabid dog, jerk, disturbed" and "unstable". Some of those claims were added to the memo by Omtzigt in a WhatsApp screenshot. Two days later, Omtzigt announced that he had left the CDA, and that he would continue as an independent member of parliament after his leave of absence.[16] On 15 September 2021, Omtzigt returned to the Dutch House of Representatives as a member of a one-person parliamentary group under the nameMember Omtzigt. In an interview withDe Twentsche Courant Tubantia a week earlier, Omtzigt had indicated that he ruled out a return to the CDA.[17]
On 20 August 2023, Omtzigt announced his participation in the earlyDutch parliamentary elections scheduled for 22 November 2023, with the partyNew Social Contract (NSC).[18] The party entered the House as the fourth-largest with twenty seats, and Omtzigt expressed his unwillingness to negotiate about forming agoverning coalition with the right-wing populistParty for Freedom (PVV), the election winner, as he believed the party did not respect therule of law. As part ofthe cabinet formation, Omtzigt entered talks underinformateurRonald Plasterk with the PVV,VVD, andBBB to address those concerns.[19] He finally left open the possibility to enter into anextraparliamentary cabinet, but he stepped out of the negotiations in February 2024, citing disagreements about finances.[19][20] Omtzigt rejoined talks under a new informateur, and acoalition agreement to form theSchoof cabinet was reached on 16 May 2024.[19] In the House of Representatives, Omtzigt has served asparliamentary leader and as spokesperson for European affairs, general affairs, theDutch royal house, andlabor migration.[21][22]
In September 2024, he took a step back from politics as he was experiencing symptoms of anoccupational burnout, intending to stay away for a few weeks. His responsibilities as parliamentary leader were taken over byNicolien van Vroonhoven, ahead of the yearlyGeneral Political Debate.[23][24]De Telegraaf had reported weeks before that Omtzigt had cried and screamed during talks between coalition parties and the cabinet.[23] During Omtzigt's absence, Van Vroonhoven negotiated adeal on asylum measures, and she averted a cabinet collapse following the resignation of State SecretaryNora Achahbar due to "polarizing interactions".[25][26] Omtzigt started a phased return to the House in late November, and he would temporarily share the role of parliamentary leader with Van Vroonhoven.[27][28] Omtzigt froze and walked out of a December 2024 interview withRick Nieman [nl] after being asked about his reported emotional behavior during formation talks, but returned shortly after to continue. He later clarified on social media that he was still limited in his capacity to handle pressure as part of his recovery.[29]
In addition to his role in parliament, Omtzigt has been serving as member of the Dutch delegation to theParliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) since 2004. He is currently a member of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights; the Committee on the Honouring of Obligations and Commitments byMember States of the Council of Europe (Monitoring Committee); the Sub-Committee on Human Rights; the Sub-Committee on the implementation of judgments of theEuropean Court of Human Rights; and the Sub-Committee on the Rights of Minorities.
In his capacity at the Parliamentary Assembly, Omtzigt has served as the Assembly'srapporteur onmass surveillance since 2014.[30] He has also been the Parliamentary Assembly's General Rapporteur on the protection ofwhistleblowers since 2021.[31]
Omtzigt has also served as rapporteur on the case of the car bombing of journalistDaphne Caruana Galizia (2018),[32] justice for the victims ofISIL (2019);[33] and onPoland (2019).[34] Between 2016 and 2017, he prepared the Assembly's proposal on an Investment Court System (ICS) for arbitrating in commercial disputes between states and foreign investors.[35]
Omtzigt was long seen as representative of the CDA'sEurosceptic wing. He has been critical ofEuropean Central Bank policies and, in 2020, pushed his party to support the idea of the Netherlands opting-out of unwanted EU programs.[36] During the campaign for the2023 Dutch general election, Omtzigt positioned himself as a centrist: conservative on immigration and climate change but leftist on reducing poverty and improving healthcare.[37] AtEW's 2024 HJ Schoo speech, Omtzigt advocated for asocial market economy, arguing that the role of the national government should be enlarged. He believed the government should be less constrained by the EU, and he called for a revision of the tax system to favor large corporations less. In the same speech, Omtzigt drew attention to lowbirth rates in the Netherlands and other European countries. He suggested this might require morelabor migration from outside of Europe, and he said that "its geopolitical implications [would be] difficult to underestimate."[38][39]
In 2024, he called the ministerial responsibility that the Dutch cabinet has for acts by theDutch royal family problematic. He suggested that either the responsibility should be curtailed or its family members should only perform ceremonial duties. Omtzigt cited the involvement ofPrincess Laurentien of the Netherlands in the aftermath of thechildcare benefits scandal and the work ofQueen Máxima of the Netherlands for theSecretary-General of the United Nations.[40]
In 2017, media in the Netherlands described howfake news reports of theMalaysia Airlines Flight 17 crash were propagated with the support of Omtzigt, who introduced a Russian man as an "eyewitness" of the crash into a public expert debate in May 2017. The man, who was an asylum-seeker from Ukraine, never witnessed the crash, and his speech, texted to him by Omtzigt prior to the interview, repeated one of the Russia-promoted versions of Mig jets downing the Boeing. Shortly thereafter, journalists determined that the man had not been at home on the night of the crash and he had already been interviewed by officials who had discounted him as a witness.[41][42][43] He acknowledged viaTwitter that he had acted carelessly and a few days later resigned as the spokesperson for the MH17 file.
Omtzigt married Ayfer Koç in 2009 and they have two children.[44] He also has two step-children. He is aCatholic and says he is inspired byCatholic social teaching; he also used to be a friend of BishopMartinus Patrus Maria Muskens ofBreda.[45]
Omtzigt and his family live inEnschede.[37]
 |
| Year | Body | Party | Pos. | Votes | Result | Ref. | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party seats | Individual | |||||||
| 2003 | House of Representatives | Christian Democratic Appeal | 51 | 1,010 | 44 | Lost[a] | [46] | |
| 2006 | House of Representatives | Christian Democratic Appeal | 37 | 1,934 | 41 | Won | [47] | |
| 2010 | House of Representatives | Christian Democratic Appeal | 29 | 4,718 | 21 | Lost[a] | [48] | |
| 2012 | House of Representatives | Christian Democratic Appeal | 39 | 36,750 | 13 | Won[b] | [49] | |
| 2017 | House of Representatives | Christian Democratic Appeal | 4 | 97,638 | 19 | Won | [50] | |
| 2021 | House of Representatives | Christian Democratic Appeal | 2 | 342,472 | 15 | Won | [51] | |
| 2023 | House of Representatives | New Social Contract | 1 | 1,203,181 | 20 | Won | [52] | |
{{cite web}}:Missing or empty|title= (help){{cite web}}:Missing or empty|title= (help)nos2 was invoked but never defined (see thehelp page).
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