On 4 April 1955 he sent a memorandum to his Benelux colleagues Paul-Henri Spaak ( Belgium) and Joseph Bech ( Luxembourg) in which he proposed his idea of a customs union. He was in favour of horizontal integration instead of continuing with a sector by sector integration along the lines of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). He was convinced that had to be begun with economic cooperation, and developed a plan that called for a European common market, combined with the idea of a political community. In August 1954 the plans had collapsed to create a European Political Community and a common defence force, the European Defence Community, as a substitute for the national armies of France, Germany, Italy and the three Benelux countries, when France refused to ratify the Treaty.īeyen realized that European integration in the political field would be impossible in the near future. Wim Beyen played a very important role in the creation of the European Economic Community. There was no longer a need for a nonpartisan minister in the cabinet. Beyen, for instance, had serious objections to Luns's attitude in the disputes with Indonesia about Netherlands New Guinea.Īfter the 1956 elections Beyen's political career came to an end. The relationship between both ministers was not too good, because they had a completely different style of operating and disagreed about several issues. One of the jokes about this construction was "The Netherlands is so small, and therefore their foreign countries altogether are so large, that one Minister of Foreign Affairs is not enough." It was an odd situation that Joseph Luns, who was a member of the Catholic People's Party, was Minister without portfolio in the same Ministry. He was asked in order to ensure a better balance of powers within the cabinet. In 1952 Wim Beyen, who did not belong to a political party, was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Second Drees cabinet. From 1946, he was the Dutch representative in the board of the World Bank and from 1948 also in that of the IMF. In 1944, he played an important role during the Bretton Woods conference where the foundations were laid for the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Within a few years he rose to the rank of Deputy Treasurer-General.Īfter 1924, Beyen had several positions in the business sector: secretary of the board of Philips, head of the Dutch branch of the central bank of the Dutch East Indies, director of one of the predecessors of the AMRO Bank, vice president and from 1937 president of the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, and director of Unilever.ĭuring World War II, he was, in addition to his position at Unilever, financial advisor to the Dutch government in exile in London. Successful careers in the public and the private sector Īfter his study Beyen was engaged as a temporary assistant clerk at the Dutch Ministry of Finance. In 1918, he was awarded a doctorate in law. ![]() Wim Beyen grew up in Utrecht and the neighbouring town of Bilthoven. After World War II his first marriage was dissolved and he married Gretel. At the end of the 1930s Beyen had a relationship with the Austrian Margaretha Antonia ( Gretel) Lubinka. In 1922, Wim Beyen married Petronella J.G. One of them was the archeologist Hendrik Gerard Beyen. ![]() His mother, Louisa Maria Coenen, stemmed from a family of musicians. ![]() He was the company secretary of the Maatschappij tot Exploitatie van Staatsspoorwegen, one of the Dutch railroad companies. His father, Karel Hendrik Beijen, was a lawyer. The official surname of Johan Willem ( Wim) Beyen was Beijen, but he preferred to write his name as Beyen because he thought that this name was more appropriate for his international connections (the "ij" digraph only occurs in Dutch). Beyen played an important role in the creation of the European Economic Community and is regarded as one of the Founding fathers of the European Union. Johan Willem "Wim" Beyen ( – 29 April 1976) was a Dutch politician and diplomat of Liberal signature and businessman.
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