The First Beel cabinet was the

cabinet of the Netherlands The cabinet of the Netherlands () is the main executive body of the Netherlands. The current cabinet of the Netherlands is the Schoof cabinet, which has been in power since 2 July 2024. It is headed by Prime Minister Dick Schoof. Composition an ...

from 3 July 1946 until 7 August 1948. The cabinet was formed by the

Christian democratic Christian democracy is an ideology inspired by Christian social teaching to respond to the challenges of contemporary society and politics. Christian democracy has drawn mainly from Catholic social teaching and neo-scholasticism, as well ...

Catholic People's Party The Catholic People's Party (, KVP) was a Roman Catholicism in the Netherlands, Catholic Christian democracy, Christian democratic list of political parties in the Netherlands, political party in the Netherlands. The party was founded in 1945 as ...

(KVP) and the

social democratic Social democracy is a Social philosophy, social, Economic ideology, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports Democracy, political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achi ...

Labour Party (PvdA) after the 1946 general election. The cabinet was a

centre-left Centre-left politics is the range of left-wing political ideologies that lean closer to the political centre. Ideologies commonly associated with it include social democracy, social liberalism, progressivism, and green politics. Ideas commo ...

grand coalition A grand coalition is an arrangement in a multi-party parliamentary system in which the two largest political party, political parties of opposing political spectrum, political ideologies unite in a coalition government. Causes of a grand coali ...

and had a substantial

majority A majority is more than half of a total; however, the term is commonly used with other meanings, as explained in the "#Related terms, Related terms" section below. It is a subset of a Set (mathematics), set consisting of more than half of the se ...

in the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ...

with prominent

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

politician Louis Beel serving as

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

, and dual serving as

Minister of the Interior An interior minister (sometimes called a minister of internal affairs or minister of home affairs) is a cabinet official position that is responsible for internal affairs, such as public security, civil registration and identification, emergency ...

continuing from the previous

cabinet Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to: Furniture * Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers * Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets * Filin ...

Labour leader The ''Labour Leader'' was a British socialist newspaper published for almost one hundred years. It was later renamed ''New Leader'' and ''Socialist Leader'', before finally taking the name ''Labour Leader'' again. 19th century The origins of th ...

Willem Drees Willem Drees Sr. (; 5 July 1886 – 14 May 1988) was a Dutch politician of the Social Democratic Workers' Party (Netherlands), Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP) and later co-founder of the Labour Party (Netherlands), Labour Party (PvdA) ...

continued as

Deputy Prime Minister A deputy prime minister or vice prime minister is, in some countries, a Minister (government), government minister who can take the position of acting prime minister when the prime minister is temporarily absent. The position is often likened to th ...

and Minister of Social Affairs from the previous cabinet. According to one study, "Beel was of the opinion that a joint KVP–PvdA programme should be presented to other political groups. According to Beel, that programme should be socio-economically progressive, that is to say reform-oriented in favour of broad layers of the population. The socialists should not have to fear that a conservative wing within the KVP would rule the roost." The cabinet served during the early years of the

post-war A post-war or postwar period is the interval immediately following the end of a war. The term usually refers to a varying period of time after World War II, which ended in 1945. A post-war period can become an interwar period or interbellum, ...

1940s. Domestically the beginning of the recovery and rebuilding following

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

continued with the

Marshall Plan The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was an American initiative enacted in 1948 to provide foreign aid to Western Europe. The United States transferred $13.3 billion (equivalent to $ in ) in economic recovery pr ...

, it was also to implement several major social reforms to social security, including the ''

Algemene Ouderdomswet The ''Algemene Ouderdomswet'' ('General Old Age pensions Act, abbreviated AOW) is a 1956 Netherlands, Dutch law that installed a state pension for the elderly. This law was a continuation of a 1947 temporary law. The old law was a proposal by Wille ...

''. Internationally the beginning of the decolonization of the

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies (; ), was a Dutch Empire, Dutch colony with territory mostly comprising the modern state of Indonesia, which Proclamation of Indonesian Independence, declared independence on 17 Au ...

was continued. The cabinet suffered no major internal and external conflicts. Following a major revision of the

Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organization or other type of entity, and commonly determines how that entity is to be governed. When these pri ...

, a

snap election A snap election is an election that is called earlier than the one that has been scheduled. Snap elections in parliamentary systems are often called to resolve a political impasse such as a hung parliament where no single political party has a ma ...

was called to simultaneously elect a new parliament. Following the election, the cabinet continued in a

demissionary A demissionary cabinet () is a type of caretaker government, caretaker cabinet of the Netherlands, cabinet or provisional government in the politics of the Netherlands, Netherlands. Overview The Dutch demissionary cabinet continues the current g ...

capacity until it was replaced by the

Drees–Van Schaik cabinet The Drees–Van Schaik cabinet of the Netherlands, cabinet, also called the First Drees cabinet was the Executive (government), executive branch of the Politics of the Netherlands, Dutch Government from 7 August 1948 until 15 March 1951. The cab ...

Term

A major issue was the independence of the

. This required a change in the Constitution. In November 1946, the

Linggadjati Agreement The Linggadjati Agreement (''Linggajati'' in modern Indonesian spelling) was a political accord concluded on 15 November 1946 by the Dutch administration and the unilaterally declared Republic of Indonesia in the village of Linggajati, Kuningan ...

was signed, but different interpretations led to Dutch military intervention ( police actions). Under international pressure through the UN, this ended and negotiations restarted, ultimately resulting in the new country

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

, but only under the next cabinet, Drees I. An important new law was the ''Noodwet Ouderdomsvoorziening'' by

Term

Composition

References

External links

Further reading