Eelco van Kleffens

Nationality

Netherlands

Date of Birth

1894

Date of Death

1983

Political
Preference

Eelco van Kleffens was a Dutch politician and diplomat. He joined the Legal Affairs Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1922. He was also the head of the diplomatic affairs department from 1929 to 1939, and became Minister of Foreign Affairs in the De Geer government in 1939.

Van Kleffens protested against any infringement on Dutch territory or the integrity of neutral states, a position that earned him an unfavorable reputation in London in the years 1939 and 1940. He believed in the principle of equality between states and hoped that this strategy would keep The Netherlands out of the war, and chose not to take any militaristic precautions before the War.

On 10 May, 1940, van Kleffens went to London to ask the British government for help after the German Reich invaded The Netherlands, and struck a deal for the Dutch government to go into exile in London. In London, Van Kleffens was involved in the creation of the Benelux. He also discussed plans to create a regional defense alliance between Norway and Belgium. Moreover, under Van Kleffen’s leadership, Dutch foreign policy in London became oriented towards transatlantic cooperation. Amidst the developing Grand Alliance-politics and the emerging structure for a post-war global security organization (the United Nations) and an economic and financial organization (the International Monetary Fund), Van Kleffens also worried about the position of smaller countries.

Therefore, Van Kleffens proposed a plan for a global system of security organizations on a regional basis, which would include organizations from European countries situated at the seashore, as well as Great Britain and the United States. This North Atlantic pact failed to gain traction, as the Allies preferred a more global security system to his regional approach. He was also involved in the signing of the Brussels Pact in March 1948, signed by The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, France and the United Kingdom and ensuring closer social, economic and military cooperation, as well as a clause of mutual defense. When the North Atlantic Pact was signed in 1949, van Kleffens’ idea of a regional security organization finally came to fruition. He became the permanent Dutch representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in 1956 as well as the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) from 1956 to 1958.