Reinier van Lanschot (born 7 September 1989) is a Dutch politician. In 2018, he co-founded Volt Netherlands with

Laurens Dassen Laurens Antonius Josephus Maria Dassen (born 19 October 1985) is a Dutch politician and former banker. Dassen grew up in Knegsel, studied business administration at Radboud University Nijmegen and worked for ABN AMRO for six years. He has been ...

and has since served its chairman. He was the party's top candidate for the

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts ...

in the 2019 election. Van Lanschot was elected to the co-presidency of Volt Europa (together with Valerie Sternberg of Volt Germany) at the 2019 General Assembly in Sofia, 12–13 October 2019.

Biography

Van Lanschot grew up in

Haarlem Haarlem (; predecessor of ''Harlem'' in English) is a city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland. Haarlem is situated at the northern edge of the Randstad, one of the most populated metropoli ...

and studied law first at the University of Utrecht (2008 to 2013) and later at the

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other being ...

(2013 to 2014), where he obtained a Master's degree. After graduating, he first started working for a

start-up A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...

offering innovative legal services. He then worked for

Ahold Delhaize Koninklijke Ahold Delhaize N.V. (in Dutch literally "Royal Ahold Delhaize"), commonly known as Ahold Delhaize, is a Dutch multinational retail and wholesaling company. Its name comes from a merger between Ahold (Dutch) and Delhaize Group (Belgia ...

as a manager, managed a supermarket in

Lelystad Lelystad () is a municipality and a city in the centre of the Netherlands, and it is the capital of the province of Flevoland. The city, built on reclaimed land, was founded in 1967 and was named after Cornelis Lely, who engineered the Afsluitdi ...

and was responsible for the sale of breakfast products in the retail department of

Albert Heijn Albert Heijn is the largest supermarket chain in the Netherlands with a market share of 34.8% in 2020. It was founded in 1887, and has been part of Ahold Delhaize since 2016. History The chain was founded on 27 May 1887, when Albert Heijn boug ...

. When he was preparing the foundation of Volt Nederland in February 2018, he quit his job to focus on party work. Since then, he has been working for the national and European Volt association. Since 2018, van Lanschot has been a trained community organiser and a graduate of the

Harvard Kennedy School The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), officially the John F. Kennedy School of Government, is the school of public policy and government of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school offers master's degrees in public policy, public ...

Political work

Volt Nederland

Together with a few others, van Lanschot founded the party Volt Nederland, the Dutch section of Volt Europa, in

Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city and a List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, pro ...

on 23 June 2018 and was elected as the party's first leader. In doing so, rising nationalism, climate protection and a lack of humane migration policies motivated him to get involved politically. In the European Parliament elections on 23 May 2019, he was the top candidate and list leader of the Dutch chapter of Volt. When he was elected list leader, he stepped down as Volt chair in order to balance leadership roles within the party. However, he fell short of entering parliament with 1.9% of the electoral vote. During the campaign, he criticised the lack of leaders in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

and a constant focus on national interests instead of common European ones.

Volt Europa

On 13 October 2019, he was elected co-president of the European federation with Valerie Sternberg-Irvani, which he has led since. Together with Francesca Romana D'Antuono, he was re-elected at the general assembly of Volt Europa in

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...

. In a guest article in October 2021, van Lanschot, together with Francesca Romana D'Antuono, advocated the establishment of a permanent EU armed corps that could be deployed quickly and autonomously in crises and criticised the slow decision-making and complicated existing processes.

Political positions

About the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

(EU), Van Lanschot declared that he agreed with the view of eurosceptics but that instead of destroying it he wants to improve it by making it more transparent, democratic and social. Van Lanschot claims that

Brexit Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 CET).The UK also left the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or ...

and the recent spike in popularity of Thierry Baudet have strengthened the party. He and his party also believe in the cause of

environmentalism Environmentalism or environmental rights is a broad philosophy, ideology, and social movement regarding concerns for environmental protection and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seek ...

Awards

On 19 December 2018, Van Lanschot and Dassen were named "EuroNederlander of the Year" by the European Movement Netherlands. On 23 January 2019, Van Lanschot was selected as one of Elsevier weekly magazine's "30 under 30" talents.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lanschot, Reinier Van Living people Dutch politicians Volt Europa politicians 21st-century Dutch politicians Harvard University alumni University of Amsterdam alumni Utrecht University alumni 1989 births