"We are all on the shoulders of giants and Wim Kok was a giant" – Groningen – DVHN.nl

Jetta Klijnsma, the king's commissioner in Drenthe, attended a meeting of Rutte 2 firm on Saturday night when the news reached him. ,, We were all sad. I knew that he was sick, but that his death would happen so fast that no one had seen it coming. I really feel it, how do you say that? Of the leg. It's a loss for us all and for me personally. I could always contact him. She always asked me how it was with me. "

Size State Man

He was a tall state man, she said, and a wise man. ,, a prime minister who put the Netherlands on the card in a very difficult time.That his last cabinet fell because of Srebrenica, it was typical of Wim Kok.He was in Coevorden this spring at the conference Relus ter Beek, as a guide of Bernhard Wientjes, for committing acts like that, which characterized him "

all on the shoulders of the giants. And Wim Kok was a giant. He has understood so well that you all have to sit around the table and have a conversation. It's in his genes. Saturday I notice that I still have to get used to the past.

Jacques Wallage, former mayor of Groningen, worked intensively with Wim Kok in the 1990s as state secretary and party leader PvdA. He called Saturday night in Bilbao with his reaction.

"Kok had a strong connection with the North"

For me, he was the man who always respected the facts, who wanted to prevent political ideas from materializing. drive. An incredibly hard worker, who really gave everything he had to offer. I remember a phrase that characterizes him. "The Netherlands is too small for the periphery," he said. He had close personal ties with the North. His wife, Rita, is from Hoogezand. "

,, For the North, it was important that he pleaded for investment in the public sector, which guaranteed the North of the Netherlands was gradually attracted. & # 39; & # 39;

"Kok found the Netherlands too small for the periphery"

Kok did not like social discussions, Wallage said. "I found him very focused on his tasks, he could be very spiritual, and most importantly, he was honest.A sober democrat of heart and soul." –

This had little effect or Wim Kok became mayor of Groningen in 1986. Wallage still remembers it. "It was after he was FNV leader, he had a positive response in Groningen, but Joop den Uyl thought he should succeed him, so he opted for The Hague."

The Groninger party mates express their disappointment, but Max van den Berg, the former King's commissioner in Groningen and former MEP and party chairman, looks back on his satisfaction in 1986, when he and Joop den Uyl spoke successfully with Kok.

Den Uyl and Van den Berg brought Kok to The Hague

We managed to stop him from going to Groningen There were a lot of people who wanted to follow Den Uyl, but we wanted Wim Kok As a union leader, he was very good at clearly explaining complex issues, I was convinced that he was the real man.As party chairman, I often sat in the kitchen with him to get him through this step, he hesitated, he e did not know if he wanted to be a political leader. And he also had difficulties at first, but he eventually became a national figure, considered by all his European colleagues as a visionary leader. His reign, the polder model, has been seen by countries such as Germany and the United States as having great democratic and social success. You would like more leaders to be of his stature. & # 39; & # 39;

Wim Kok has always remained the normal boy, says Van den Berg. "He came from a small village, Bergambacht, it was a village with a history of work, he always felt bound to that, he was honestly sharing, so that people who were not not have an equal chance. "

" He suffered from Srebrenica "

The abrupt end of his second cabinet, in 2002, according to Van den Berg had more of an impact on Kok than any other. we do not think so. "Initially, his purple cabinets, without the CDA, were seen as a liberation from Christian moralism, but in the second phase, something went wrong in the public-private domain, the decisions were executed by the VVD, which made He was aware of this, but he had to run a government.He really suffered from Srebrenica, he was behind the decision to leave the cabinet because he did not think it was However, he suffered because the success of his policy could fall so rapidly. "

,, He was a very modest man, simple and practical, without fuss, without pressure. It had nothing to do with empty sentences. He was accused of having said that the PvdA had had to get rid of his left plumage. But with that, it was hinted that he was not proof of principle. And he was there. He was always well informed, never touched at the hip. He was there for the people's man. He was president of the Bouwbond, but the people on the pier were his people. You have felt that. & # 39; & # 39;