Pieter Omtzigt – Wikipedia

Dutch politician (born 1974)

Pieter Herman Omtzigt (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈpitər ˈɦɛrmɑn ˈɔmtsɪxt]; born 8 January 1974) is a Dutch politician who has served as a member of the House of Representatives since 2003 apart from a short interruption between June and October 2010.^[1] He was member of the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), but left in 2021 and continued as independent.^[2] In August 2023, he founded a new party called New Social Contract, its name taken from his 2021 manifesto.^[3]

In his political work, Omtzigt focuses on matters of taxes and pensions. He rose to prominence for his role in bringing attention to the childcare benefits scandal.^[4]

Early life and education[edit]

Omtzigt was born in The Hague, Netherlands in 1974, as one of twins. His father Jan Omtzigt (1939-2019) was a civil servant at the Dutch state telecommunications company PTT and later director of a Roman Catholic retirement house in Zenderen.^[5] When he was four years old, Omtzigt moved with his parents and brothers from Wassenaar to Borne.^[6] He attended the gymnasium school in Hengelo.

From 1992 to 1996, Omtzigt studied at the University of Exeter (Devon, England), where he obtained his BA degree in Economics and Statistics with European Studies. In the meantime, he did a student exchange program at the LUISS University (Rome, Italy) from 1994 to 1995. During his studies, Omtzigt was also a board member of the youth department of the Dutch Christian trade union CNV between 1991 and 1993. He performed his doctoral research at the European University Institute (Florence, Italy), where he obtained a PhD in Economics in 2003, with the dissertation titled Essays in Cointegration Analysis.^[7] Omtzigt was a researcher at the University of Insubria (Varese, Italy) from 2000 to 2002. From 2002 he was a post-doctoral researcher at the Quantitative Economics department of the University of Amsterdam.^[8]

Political career[edit]

House of Representatives[edit]

In parliament, Omtzigt currently serves on the Committees on European Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Housing and Kingdom Services, Social Affairs and Employment, Finance and Public Expenditure. From 2017, he served as the parliament’s rapporteur on Brexit.^[9]

From 2019, Omtzigt, together with Member of Parliament Renske Leijten (SP), stood up for affected parents in the childcare benefits scandal in which more than 20,000 families were wronged when applying for childcare allowance. In the end, civil servants and (former) ministers were heard by the parliamentary questioning committee on Childcare Allowance, which ultimately led to the fall of the third Rutte cabinet in January 2021.

In July 2020, Omtzigt was defeated by Deputy Prime Minister Hugo de Jonge in a vote for the position of leader of the Christian Democratic Appeal. Omtzigt was re-elected in the 2021 general election, winning 342,472 preference votes, more than any other non-party leader.^[10] Following the election, Omtzigt took time off, after complaining of exhaustion.^[11] Despite his leave, he decided to attend his installation on 31 March 2021.^[12]

On 25 March 2021, confidential notes from the government formation were revealed to include, among other things, “position Omtzigt, function elsewhere” (Dutch: “positie Omtzigt, functie elders”).^[13] This prompted a heated debate in parliament and an impasse in the government formation.^[14] Amid the continuous news, Omtzigt took a formal leave of absence of four months starting on 25 May. He was temporarily replaced as a member of parliament by Henri Bontenbal.^[15]

On 10 June 2021 a 78-page memo by Omtzigt was leaked, addressed to the CDA’s Spies-committee that analysed the results of the parliamentary elections of March 2021. Omtzigt lashed out hard at the CDA, group employees and CDA members of parliament who were not named and wrote that he was promised the leadership of the party if Hugo de Jonge would withdraw as party leader. After De Jonge’s departure, however, the party leadership was offered to Wopke Hoekstra. According to Omtzigt, that was completely beyond his control. According to Omtzigt, political party members and members of the House of Representatives have described him as a “psychopath, sick man, rabid dog, jerk, disturbed” and “unstable”. Some of those claims were added to the memo by Omtzigt in a WhatsApp screenshot. Two days later, Omtzigt announced that he had left the CDA, and that he would continue as an independent member of parliament after his leave of absence.^[16]

Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe[edit]

In addition to his role in parliament, Omtzigt has been serving as member of the Dutch delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) since 2004. He is currently a member of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights; the Committee on the Honouring of Obligations and Commitments by Member States of the Council of Europe (Monitoring Committee); the Sub-Committee on…