Gretta Duisenberg
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
6 November 1942
- Political activist
- nurse
Gretta Duisenberg | |
|---|---|
_detail.jpg) Duisenberg in January 2009 | |
| Born | Greetje Nieuwenhuizen 6 November 1942 Heerenveen, Netherlands |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | c. 1975–present |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 3 |
Gretta Duisenberg-Nieuwenhuizen (born 6 November 1942) is a Dutch pro-Palestinian political activist. She is the widow of Dutch Labour Party (PvdA) politician Wim Duisenberg, who was also the first president of the European Central Bank.
Gretta Duisenberg was born as Greetje Nieuwenhuizen[1] into a strict Reformed family in Heerenveen, Friesland, where her father worked as a policeman. The family moved to Haarlem, where she grew up as a member of the Free Reformed Churches. She broke away from her religious background in the 1960s and began using the name Gretta. She started a career as a nurse and was married to internist Frits Bédier de Prairie from 1967 to 1975. They have three children.
After their divorce, she continued to bear the name of her ex-husband and went through life as Gretta Bédier de Prairie. During this period, she became active in left-wing politics and human rights causes. In the late 1970s she became involved with the Transnational Institute, an organization that advocates for the interests of the Global South and is critical of globalization. During these years she was a member of the Pacifist Socialist Party. Later she became a member of the Socialist Party.
In the early 1980s she had a brief relationship with the then Dutch Minister of Defence Hans van Mierlo. Through him she met Wim Duisenberg, who coincidentally was also born in Heerenveen.[2] In 1987 she married Duisenberg, who was then president of De Nederlandsche Bank and from 1998 inaugural president of the European Central Bank (ECB). He died in 2005 at his holiday home in France.
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