Pepijn van Houwelingen

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In this Dutch name, the surname is Van Houwelingen, not Houwelingen.
Pepijn van Houwelingen
PepijnvanHouwelingenHeijmans (cropped 2).jpg
Van Houwelingen (2021)
Member of the House of Representatives
Assumed office
31 March 2021
Personal details
Born
Pepijn van Houwelingen

(1980-02-24) 24 February 1980 (age 41)
Enschede, Netherlands
NationalityDutch
Political partyForum for Democracy
ResidenceThe Hague
Alma mater
OccupationPolitician

Pepijn van Houwelingen (born 24 February 1980) is a Dutch politician, who has been serving as a member of the House of Representatives since the 2021 general election. He is a member of the conservative populist party Forum for Democracy (FvD). Van Houwelingen holds a doctorate and has worked for the Netherlands Institute for Social Research for a decade.

Early life and career[]

Van Houwelingen was born in 1980 in the Overijssel city Enschede, where he attended the gymnasium of the secondary school Jacobus College starting in 1992.[1] He studied industrial engineering at the University of Twente from 1998 until 2002. Van Houwelingen subsequently did another master's in (philosophy of) economics and another bachelor's in Japanese studies at the same time at Erasmus University Rotterdam.[2][3] He moved to Japan in 2005 to study at the Hiroshima City University and obtained his PhD in 2009 after finishing his dissertation titled Social capital in Japan.[2]

After finishing his studies, Van Houwelingen worked for half a year in demand and supply management at Canon Europe in Amstelveen. In February 2010, he took a job as a scientific assistant specialized in citizen participation at the Netherlands Institute for Social Research, a government agency where he remained employed until he became an MP.[2][4][5]

Politics[]

While working at the Netherlands Institute for Social Research, Van Houwelingen voiced his opposition to what he perceived as the growing power of the European Union (EU).[6] He also wrote that he favored direct democracy with referenda and that he supported decentralization.[5]

Van Houwelingen was one of the initiators of Burgercomité-EU (EU citizen committee), which aims to make decisions surrounding the EU more democratic. After a law was passed that made it possible to trigger an advisory referendum, the organization cooperated with GeenStijl and Forum for Democracy to get a referendum on the approval of the European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement.[6] The referendum was held in 2016 after enough signatures had been collected, and Burgercomité-EU campaigned against the agreement. Van Houwelingen also co-authored a manifesto opposing it.[7] A few weeks after the referendum, NRC Handelsblad revealed that a novel by Van Houwelingen had been published in 2010 under the pseudonym Vossius. The book's main character argues in favor of city-states, discrimination of minorities, oppression of women, and the abolition of human rights, and he calls the EU the source of many evils.[5]

At the end of 2019, Van Houwelingen was involved in the establishment of the broadcasting corporation Ongehoord Nederland (Unheard Netherlands), that wants to become part of the Dutch public broadcasting system.[8]

Forum for Democracy MP[]

In the 2021 general election, Van Houwelingen was Forum for Democracy's eighth candidate. He was elected, receiving 430 preference votes, and was sworn into the House of Representatives on 31 March 2021.[9] Van Houwelingen became the FvD's spokesperson for the European Union, referenda, social affairs, and public health.[3] Finances and economic affairs were added to his specialities when three Forum for Democracy MPs left the party in May 2021.[10] Van Houwelingen is a member of the Committees for Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality; for European Affairs; for Health, Welfare and Sport; for the Interior; and for Petitions.[2]

During a legislative meeting in April 2021 about a mandatory quarantine for travelers returning to the Netherlands because of the COVID-19 pandemic, he called the measure totalitarian and compared its reasoning to the persecution of Jews during World War II.[11]

Personal life[]

Van Houwelingen is a resident of The Hague.[2]

Bibliography[]

  • (2010, Aspekt) Oneigentijds (Not contemporary) under the pseudonym Vossius
  • (2015, Blue Tiger) Manifest aan het volk van Nederland (Manifesto to the people of the Netherlands) with Arjan van Dixhoorn
  • (2021, Renaissance Instituut) Microfobie: De cult van het kolossale (Microphobia: The cult of the colossal)

References[]

  1. ^ "Biografie, onderwijs en loopbaan van Pepijn van Houwelingen" [Biography, education, and career of Pepijn van Houwelingen]. Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal (in Dutch). Retrieved 26 May 2021.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e "Pepijn van Houwelingen". Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal. Retrieved 26 May 2021.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b "Tweede Kamer" [House of Representatives]. FVD (in Dutch). Retrieved 26 May 2021.
  4. ^ "Dr. P. (Pepijn) van Houwelingen". Parlement.com (in Dutch). Retrieved 26 May 2021.
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b c Heck, Wilmer; Stokmans, Derk (30 April 2016). "De machtsfantasie van een referendumactivist" [The power fantasy of a referendum activist]. NRC (in Dutch). Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  6. ^ Jump up to: a b Heck, Wilmer; Huiskes, Jurgen (30 March 2013). "Oekraïne-referendum: de belangrijkste vragen en antwoorden" [Ukraine referendum: the most important questions and answers]. NRC (in Dutch). Retrieved 26 May 2021.
  7. ^ Dirks, Bart; Visser, Jeroen (1 February 2016). "Wie spelen er een rol bij het Oekraïne-referendum?" [Who are the important players in the Ukraine referendum]. de Volkskrant (in Dutch). Retrieved 26 May 2021.
  8. ^ Mebius, Dion (18 March 2021). "Van Fortuyns chauffeur tot de schrijver van een opzienbarende roman" [From Fortuyn's driver to the author of a sensational novel]. de Volkskrant (in Dutch).
  9. ^ "Uitslag Tweede Kamerverkiezing 17 maart 2021 Proces-verbaal" [Results general election 17 March 2021 Report] (PDF). Kiesraad (in Dutch). 29 March 2021. pp. 145 and 238. Retrieved 26 May 2021.
  10. ^ "Tweede Kamer" [House of Representatives]. FVD (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 23 April 2021. Retrieved 26 May 2021.CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  11. ^ "FVD vergelijkt quarantaineplicht met Jodenvervolging" [FvD compares mandatory quarantine to persecution of the Jews]. De Telegraaf (in Dutch). 28 April 2021. Retrieved 27 May 2021.

External links[]

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