Marijke Vos

Marijke Vos

Marijke Vos, born on the 4th of May 1957 in Leidschendam, the Netherlands, is a member of the Dutch Senate on behalf of Groenlinks (translated as Greenleft). She became a representative in the Senate on the 7th of June 2011.

Political Career

In 1989 Vos became a member of Groenlinks and almost immediately entered its temporary board, which would oversee the merger of the four parties that would eventually form Groenlinks. She was elected party chairperson in 1990. In 1992 this office became a paid function and she left the university of Leiden where she was a teacher of ecology. In 1994 she stood for Groenlinks in the 1994 general elections and was elected into the House of Representatives. Between 1995 and 1996, Vos acted as chairperson of the parliamentary commission on climate change. She was elected animal rights protector of the year in 1997, and has been deputy party leader of Groenlinks since 1998. Between 2001 and 2003 she was chairperson of the parliamentary commission on fraud in the building sector. In 2003 she became interim party leader and a member of the advisory board of refugee-assistence organization Steunpunt Vluchteling. In 2004 she dediced not not enter the next general elections for Groenlinks, and after a period of being councilor for the city of Amsterdam, she became a member of the Senate in 2011 for Groenlinks.

Education

Vos attended the pre-university Gymnasium (grammar school) in the Dutch city of ‘s Hertogenbosch, where she graduated in 1975. Afterwards, she went on to study biology at the University of Wageningen, graduating in 1983. During her study, Vos played an active part in the city’s student’s movement, the peace movement and the Dutch national campaign against the use of nuclear energy. In 1984 she started to work as a teacher and campaigner for Dutch environmental organization Milieudefensie, and in 1990 she began to teach ecology at the Centre of Ecology of the University of Leiden until 1992.