Overview

Mansholt, a biography is the inside story of one of the founding fathers of the European Union. As a European Commissioner the Dutchman Sicco Mansholt (1908-1995) initiated the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). A federalist and a Eurocrat who forced through an allegedly bad policy that is still a millstone round the neck of European taxpayers, Mansholt was also every inch a politician who had the courage of his convictions. A charismatic leader and a model for EU-statesmanship. The book offers a critical appraisal of Mansholt’s life and work as well as a concise history of 20th century Europe. According to Chancellor Adenauer Mansholt – being a socialist and a farmer – was too much of a good thing. President Kennedy welcomed him as a good European, while de Gaulle denounced him as an enemy of France. And as far as President Nixon was concerned Mansholt was «that jackass in the European Commission in Brussels».

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Johan van Merriënboer (1962) studied history and law at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands. He has specialized in contemporary political history and European Law. Since 1990 van Merriënboer is a researcher for the Centre of Parliamentary History of the Radboud University Nijmegen. He has written various contributions for the series Parliamentary History of the Netherlands after 1945 and biographies on the Dutch prime ministers De Jong (2001) and Van Agt (2008). Van Merriënboer got a PhD for his biography on Sicco Mansholt. In 2009 the Montesquieu Institute in The Hague granted him a subsidy for the English translation of this book.

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