Sicco Mansholt
Sicco Leendert Mansholt (* September 13 1908 in Ulrum; † 29 June 1995 Wapserveen, today Westerveld ) was a Dutch politician. He was President of the European Commission.
Mansholt came from a social-democratic -minded large peasant family in Groningen. Mansholt attended the " Tropical Agricultural School " in Deventer, where he trained as a tobacco planter. Subsequently, he studied agricultural science and worked from 1929 to 1931 as an assistant at an agricultural institute.
In 1934 he moved to Java, to work as a civil servant on a tea plantation. Since oppressed him the colonial system, he returned again in 1936 to the Netherlands. He wanted to be a farmer and settled in 1937 on the since 1934 taken in culture Wieringermeer polder, where he conducted a farm.
He was a member of the Democratic Sociaal Arbeiders Partij ( SDAP ), was secretary of the local SDAP local group, where he held various other public functions, including the Mayor of Wieringermeer. During the Second World War he was active in the resistance against National Socialism. Mansholt hid not only in hiding in Wieringermeer polder, he also organized the secret food supply for the western provinces of the Netherlands. After the end of the German occupation Mansholt had briefly held the mayor's office in Wieringermeer.
Immediately after the war, in June 1945, Prime Minister Willem Schermerhorn of the PvdA picked him as Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Supply into his cabinet, where he was the youngest minister at 36 years.
He was a member of six governments:
- Cabinet Schermerhorn - Drees (1945 )
- Cabinet Beel 1 (1946 )
- Cabinet Drees - Van Schaik (1948 )
- Cabinet Drees 1 (1951 )
- Cabinet Drees 2 (1952 )
- Cabinet Drees 3 (1956 )
Under Mansholt the Ministry of Agriculture in the Netherlands received a position of power, it had comparable in any other European country. The Dutch agriculture, he brought on a modernization, refining and export course they followed to this day. In addition, Mansholt was considered one of the most important politician of the Socialist Party of the Netherlands. In 1950 he laid the European governments to " Mansholt Plan ', an agricultural policy equivalent of the Schuman Plan, which was however rejected by most governments and never implemented.
In 1958 he was one of the Commissioners of the European Commission's newly formed and also dealt in this position primarily with agricultural policy. His applied in the Netherlands concepts he transferred to the pan-European agriculture. A 1960 submitted plan for the integration of European agriculture on a large scale and to establish uniform prices for their products met largely with disapproval, since the emergence of agribusiness cartel was feared. Some of these ideas, however, were taken up in the negotiations for the further integration of the EEC beginning of 1962. End of 1968, he put forward a plan ( Mansholt Plan ), who wanted to streamline by reducing the number and increasing the areas of agricultural holdings European agriculture and introduce them to the world market.
Mansholt was Vice- President of the EEC Commission since 1958. According to the transition of the EEC to the EC Mansholt was Vice President of the EC Commission and in 1972 and 1973 for seven months President of the European Commission. During this time he was heavily influenced by the Club of Rome and he had an extramarital relationship with Petra Kelly. In 1974 he is deputy chairman of the party in the covenant of the Social Democratic Parties of the European Community.