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Martijn Bolkestein

Dutch politician

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 4, 2026
Entity authorityQ28861078 ↗
Source-derived summary

Martijn N. Bolkestein (born 13 March 1972) is a Dutch politician who served as a member of the House of Representatives between July 2020 and March 2021. He is a member of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD).

Prior to becoming a member of the House of Representatives, Bolkestein had a career in the private sector at Royal Dutch Shell and a number of consultancy firms. He had also been a municipal councillor in Bloemendaal (2014–2018) and a member of the States of North Holland (2019–2020).

Early life and education

Bolkestein was born on 13 March 1972 in the North Holland city Haarlem and grew up in the nearby villages Overveen and Bloemendaal. He attended the Stedelijk Gymnasium Haarlem before studying economics at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam between 1990 and 1997. During the last one and a half years of his study, he worked as financial manager at Russia Travel.

Non-political career

After completing his study, Bolkestein started working for oil and gas company Royal Dutch Shell in The Hague. His positions included financial and IT manager, and he worked for five years in Dubai for Shell Middle East (2006–2011). In 2012, Bolkestein became an ethics and compliance manager at Shell.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Martijn Bolkestein” is dutch politician. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Martijn, Bolkestein and Dutch, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1972, 2020, 2021, 2014—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1972-03-13. For this dossier, Martijn, Bolkestein and Dutch is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

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.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q28861078. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1972, 2020, 2021 and 2014.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Martijn Bolkestein”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Martijn Bolkestein primary sources, Martijn Bolkestein archive and Martijn research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Martijn Bolkestein”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Martijn Bolkestein” 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.