Michiel van Hulten
Michiel Frans van Hulten (born 18 February 1969) is a former Dutch politician. He was a Member of the European Parliament (1999–2004)[1] and was chairman of the Labour Party (Dutch: Partij van de Arbeid, PvdA) from December 2005 until April 2007.
Early years
Michiel van Hulten is the son of former Member of Parliament and former undersecretary to the Minister of Transport Michel van Hulten. As a child he lived for four years in Mali and Burkina Faso, two of the world's poorest countries. In 1984 the Van Hulten family moved to New York, where father Michel worked for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Van Hulten earned the International Baccalaureate at Atlantic College in Wales. He holds a BSc(Econ) in Government (1990) and a MSc in Public Administration and Public Policy (1991) from the London School of Economics (LSE), and a Master of Arts in European Political and Administrative Studies (1993) from the College of Europe in Bruges.[2] During his college years, he became a member of the Labour Party and the Young Socialists.
Political career
In 1993, Van Hulten started working as a policy officer at the Dutch Trades Union Confederation (Dutch: Federatie Nederlandse Vakbeweging, FNV) in Amsterdam. He was then successively private secretary (political assistant) to Education minister Jo Ritzen and Administrator in the Secretariat of the EU Council of Ministers. In 1997, Van Hulten took part in the election campaign for Tony Blair in Britain, and in 1998 he worked for the Labour Party (Dutch: Partij van de Arbeid, PvdA) campaign in the parliamentary elections in the Netherlands.
In 1999 Van Hulten was a successful Labour Party candidate in the European Parliament (EP) elections. He was a member of the Committee on Budgetary Control, whose task is to reduce fraud and irregularities. Together with colleagues from other countries and parties of the Campaign for Parliament Reform,[3] a group of MEPs which strives for an end the monthly 'moving caravan' of Parliament between Brussels and Strasbourg and retrenchment of the generous reimbursements of expenses. In 2002, Van Hulten was named one the Europeans of the Year by the weekly newspaper European Voice (now Politico Europe).
In 2003 he decided not to seek re-election and he was active as Board member and Vice-Chair of Policy Network, an international progressive think-tank based in London. After PvdA chairman Ruud Koole announced in 2005 he was stepping down, Van Hulten ran for the presidency of the Labour Party and won with over 60% of the vote.
Van Hulten was campaign manager for the Labour Party in the successful local elections in 2006 and the parliamentary elections in 2006, when the Labour Party unexpected lost 9 seats. In the months following the elections he was sometimes criticised for his idiosyncratic style. [1] After Van Hulten presented a set of reform proposals to the party executive in April 2007 three board members informed him via a letter that they disagreed with his views. Van Hulten saw this as a breach of trust and resigned with immediate effect on April 25, 2007. The same evening the rest of the board also resigned and an interim board was appointed under the leadership of Van Hultens predecessor Ruud Koole.
Since 2007
From 2007-2012 Michiel was a founding Member of the European Council on Foreign Relations. Since 2007, Van Hulten has worked in Brussels, first for public affairs firm Burson-Marsteller as managing director for government relations. Since 2010 he has been an independent consultant in the field of European Union democracy, transparency and accountability.[2] From 2011 to 2013 he was course leader of the FutureLab Europe programme at the European Policy Centre. From 2011-2013 he was a guest lecturer on the European Parliament at the Institut des Hautes Etudes des Communications Sociales in Brussels. From 2011 to 2014 he was managing director of VoteWatch Europe, an organization that tracks the voting records of the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers.
Van Hulten is as a Visiting Senior Fellow at the European Institute of the London School of Economics and Political Science.[2]