Land van Lubbers

- Season 1

(2016)

Ruud Lubbers's son warns him against his usual self-indulged style when giving lectures to students about chapters in his political career. In 1973 future Dutch PM Ruud Lubbers, then the youngest Economic Affairs minister ever, only three months in office under Den Uyl (Labour party)is charged with handling the oil crisis, while still a young father of three. He works behind everyone's back (as the PM wants) and sneakily luring maximal petroleum deliveries trough Rotterdam to it, while deluding the public about the scarcity. He was inspired by the defense minister who...

Ruud Lubbers recalls the 1980s economic crisis, when predecessor Dries van Agt asked him to succeed as Christian-democratic PM, and compares to 2015.he accepted the challenge to tackle unemployment and the 'hammock welfare state'. Wife Ria wants a separation or even divorce, while he gets on well with queen Beatrix despite different opinions. The students get him to admit he pragmatically lacks ideals, staking everything on problem solving.

Former PM Lubbers discusses how he handled the country's main Cold War conflict: the hotly contested question whether the Netherlands should accept stationing US nuclear arms, object of major demonstrations and questions of pragmatic, ethical and even religious nature on every level, from his family -under tension as his marriage nearly falls apart- and neighbors over the Catholic episcopate up to queen Beatrix. Students' questions about his pragmatism as opposed to morality and even democracy make if hard to convince the new generation of his views on statemanship.

Lubbers recalls how he fought for the European common currency, and the accompanying Maastricht conditions to join the Euro. The inevitable clash with major power leaders, notably France's Mitterrand and Germany's Kohl, compromised his own ambition for the EU commission presidency, after which he planned to leave as PM but found himself in conflict with his groomed successor Elco Brinkman, which contributed to his Christian party's decline.