Gijs de Vries
Dutch politician
Gijsbert Marius "Gijs" de Vries (born 22 February 1956) is a retired Dutch-American politician and diplomat who served as State Secretary for the Interior and Kingdom Relations from 1998 to 2002 and European Union Counter-terrorism Coordinator from 2004 until 2007. He was a member of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) until 2010, when he joined the Democrats 66 (D66) party.
Career
Political career
From 1984 to 1998, Gijs de Vries was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for three consecutive terms. From 1994 to 1998, he was chairman of the group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party.
De Vries resigned from the European Parliament to become State Secretary for the Interior and Kingdom Relations under the Second Kok cabinet.
EU Anti-Terrorism Coordinator, 2004–2007
De Vries served as the European Union's anti-terrorism coordinator from March 2004 to March 2007. In this capacity, he worked for Javier Solana in the Police and Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters (PJCCM) pillar. Solana outlined his duties as being to streamline, organise and co-ordinate the EU and its members fight against terrorism.
De Vries stood down from the post in March 2007, citing personal reasons, although it is commonly understood that the position's mandate did not have the necessary operational powers, as well as an overall reluctance within member states to supply information regarding anti-terror activities, even though the member states fully supported the establishment of the anti-terrorism coordinator after the 2004 Madrid train bombings. In September 2007, MEPs called for the post to be filled, having been vacant for six months, as well as for it to be given real powers to carry out the post's tasks.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Gijs de Vries” is dutch politician. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Gijs, Vries and Dutch, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “dutch politician” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q364313. VIAF identifies the subject as 18913473. The Library of Congress control number is n94065781. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1956, 1998, 2002 and 2004.
A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gijs de Vries” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.