Dick Benschop

Dirk Anne "Dick" Benschop (; born 5 November 1957) is a Dutch corporate executive and politician of the Labour Party (PvdA). He served as State Secretary for European Affairs in the second Kok cabinet.

After studying history at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, he started his career as personal assistant of former prime minister Joop den Uyl in 1986, the year before Den Uyl's death. Benschop subsequently advised parliamentary leaders Wim Kok and Thijs Wöltgens. He did some consulting work before being sworn in as State Secretary for European Affairs in August 1998. He led the Labour Party's campaign in the May 2002 general election, in which Ad Melkert was lead candidate and in which the party lost 22 of its 45 seats in the House of Representatives. Benschop was elected, but he left parliament in August 2002.

He started working for Royal Dutch Shell the following year, and he served as president-director of Shell Netherlands from 2011 until 2015. Benschop became chief executive officer (CEO) of Royal Schiphol Group in 2018, leading the largest airport in the Netherlands. He resigned from his position in September 2022 after a personnel shortage had resulted in months of reduced capacity and long lines of passengers.

Early life and education Benschop was born in Driebergen on 5 November 1957 as the youngest child in a Reformed Christian family. His father worked as a municipal secretary in Driebergen, and both his grandfathers had been active in local politics in Meerkerk, as municipal councilor and as alderman. He attended secondary education in Doorn, graduating with a diploma, and he subsequently studied history at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He was chairman of the student council, and he was active in the (IKV). Benschop graduated from university in 1984 with a master's degree.

Following his studies, he worked as a substitute history teacher in Den Helder for seven months, leaving the profession afterwards. He later called it the toughest job he ever had, and he was subsequently unemployed for a year.

Politics In 1986, he became the personal assistant of Joop den Uyl, a former prime minister and Labour Party leader. Den Uyl hired a historian as he was planning to write his autobiography. Following Den Uyl's death in late 1987, Benschop founded a foundation that organizes lectures in his memory. He occasionally wrote opinion pieces for , a youth movement connected to the Labour Party. Along with finance minister Gerrit Zalm, he campaigned to reduce the Dutch annual contribution to the European Union by . Their demand was met at the Berlin meeting in 1999. Along with Prime Minister Kok and Minister Van Aartsen, he oversaw the enactment of a law ratifying the Treaty of Amsterdam. The Labour Party lost 22 of its 45 seats in parliament. Benschop reflected on the loss, saying that the party should have made a clearer choice between either defending the previous purple coalitions or advocating for renewal. He also argued that the Labour Party had lost touch with part of its supporters by celebrating economic success despite their concerns. He announced that he would not be seeking political leadership of the party. In May 2011, he succeeded Peter de Wit as president-director of Shell Netherlands. Following the , caused by gas extraction from the Groningen field by Shell and ExxonMobil, the oversight body recommended to reduce the level of extraction. Newspaper NRC later reported based on internal memos that Benschop, strongly opposed to government intervention, successfully lobbied alongside ExxonMobil to avoid any restrictions.

Benschop had several secondary positions. In 2013, he became chair of the supervisory board of The Hague Institute for Global Justice, which had been founded in 2011. The organization announced its closure due to bankruptcy in April 2018, and Benschop acknowledged he should have intervened sooner. He contrasted himself with more left-wing Labour Party members, saying in the late 1990s that "policies directed against the business community are not in the interest of the Netherlands."

He is in favor of turning the mayoralty into an elected office. He added that the same idea appealed to him for the position of prime minister, but he said that the position is already indirectly filled through elections. Benschop resided in Badhoevedorp as state secretary, and he moved with his family to Malaysia when he worked for Shell.

Electoral history + YearBodyPartyVotesResult.Party seatsIndividual 1989 House of Representatives Labour Party 7 122 1994 52 260 2002 7 5,768