Frans Hubertus Henricus Weekers (born 17 October 1967) is a Dutch politician of the

People's Party for Freedom and Democracy The People's Party for Freedom and Democracy ( , VVD) is a Conservative liberalism, conservative-liberal List of political parties in the Netherlands, political party in the Netherlands. The VVD, whose forerunner was the Freedom Party (Netherl ...

(VVD) and lawyer.

Early life and education

Weekers was born in

Weert Weert (; ) is a Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality and city in the southeastern Netherlands located in the western part of the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of Limburg (Netherlands), Limburg. It lies on the Eindhoven–Maas ...

, in the province

Limburg Limburg or Limbourg may refer to: Regions * Limburg (Belgium), a province since 1839 in the Flanders region of Belgium * Limburg (Netherlands), a province since 1839 in the south of the Netherlands * Diocese of Limburg, Roman Catholic Diocese in ...

. His father was an

accountant An accountant is a practitioner of accounting or accountancy. Accountants who have demonstrated competency through their professional associations' certification exams are certified to use titles such as Chartered Accountant, Chartered Certif ...

and member of the

municipal council A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, borough cou ...

. His paternal grandfather was a ''

wethouder In the Netherlands, the municipal executive (, oftentimes abbreviated to ; ) is the executive board of a municipality. It plays a central role in municipal politics in the Netherlands, similar to the communal college in Belgium. It consists of ...

'' in Weert. His mother was a

schoolteacher A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. w ...

.Mr.Drs. F.H.H. (Frans) Weekers
Parlement.com. Retrieved on 2013-05-12. Weekers attended secondary school in Weert between 1980 and 1987, where he did the vwo programme. He became a member of the VVD in 1986, while he was still in secondary school. Weekers subsequently went to the

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam The (abbreviated as ''VU Amsterdam'' or simply ''VU'' when in context) is a public university, public research university in Amsterdam, Netherlands, founded in 1880. The VU Amsterdam is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in ...

1987, where he obtained an MSc degree in

economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...

and

econometrics Econometrics is an application of statistical methods to economic data in order to give empirical content to economic relationships. M. Hashem Pesaran (1987). "Econometrics", '' The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics'', v. 2, p. 8 p. 8 ...

in 1992 and an

LLM A large language model (LLM) is a language model trained with Self-supervised learning, self-supervised machine learning on a vast amount of text, designed for natural language processing tasks, especially Natural language generation, language g ...

degree in 1993.

Career

Legal work

Weekers worked as a legal advisor for the assurance company Van Rey and as the assistant of the member of 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 ...

Jos van Rey in 1993 and 1994.

Politics

Weekers was an elected member of the

of Weert from 1994 to 2003, where he was the fraction leader of the VVD. From 1994, he also worked as a

lawyer A lawyer is a person who is qualified to offer advice about the law, draft legal documents, or represent individuals in legal matters. The exact nature of a lawyer's work varies depending on the legal jurisdiction and the legal system, as w ...

in Weert, until he was elected to the

in 1998. He served as a member of the

from 19 May 1998 to 23 May 2002, a second time from 3 June 2003 until 14 October 2010 and a third time from 20 September until 5 November 2012. Weekers was State Secretary at the

Ministry of Finance A ministry of finance is a ministry or other government agency in charge of government finance, fiscal policy, and financial regulation. It is headed by a finance minister, an executive or cabinet position . A ministry of finance's portfoli ...

in the

First Rutte cabinet The first Rutte cabinet, also called the Rutte–Verhagen cabinet was the Executive (government), executive branch of the Politics of the Netherlands, government of the Netherlands from 14 October 2010 until 5 November 2012. The Cabinet of the ...

starting 14 October 2010. On 5 November 2012, he was re-appointed in the

Second Rutte cabinet The second Rutte cabinet, also called the Rutte–Asscher cabinet, was the executive branch of the Government of the Netherlands from 5 November 2012 until 26 October 2017. The cabinet was formed by the conservative-liberal People's Party for F ...

, dealing with fiscal affairs and finances of lower governments. He resigned on 4 February 2014 and was replaced by Eric Wiebes, an

alderman An alderman is a member of a Municipal government, municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law with similar officials existing in the Netherlands (wethouder) and Belgium (schepen). The term may be titular, denotin ...

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

Later career

From 2016 to 2020, Frans Weekers served as Executive Director on the Board of the

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, shortened to EBRD ( French: ''Banque européenne pour la reconstruction et le développement'' or ''BERD''), is an international financial institution founded in 1991 in Paris. As a multilat ...

in London. Starting from March 1, 2020, he became the Deputy Secretary-General of the

Benelux Union The Benelux Union (; ; ; ) or Benelux is a politico-economic union, alliance and formal international intergovernmental cooperation of three neighbouring states in Western Europe: Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. The name is a portmant ...

. On January 1, 2023, he assumed the position of Secretary-General.

Resignation

Opposition parties have fiercely criticized his performance. According to them, Weekers had insufficient knowledge of the tax office being behind on payments, such as providing rental and care allowances to about 100,000 citizens. After Weekers heard that a motion of no confidence was imminent, he submitted his resignation on 29 January 2014. On January 30, 2014, decree No. 2014000256 on his dismissal from office was issued.

References

External links

;Official *
Mr.Drs. F.H.H. (Frans) Weekers
Parlement & Politiek {{DEFAULTSORT:Weekers, Frans 1967 births Living people Dutch fiscal jurists Dutch prosecutors Dutch political consultants Mayors in Limburg (Netherlands) People from Beek Mayors of Heerlen Dutch MPs 2012–2017 Municipal councillors in Limburg (Netherlands) People from Weert People's Party for Freedom and Democracy politicians State secretaries for finance of the Netherlands Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam alumni 20th-century Dutch lawyers 20th-century Dutch politicians 21st-century Dutch lawyers Dutch MPs 2006–2010 Dutch MPs 2010–2012