Sybe Schaap


Sybe Schaap is a Dutch politician of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy. He has been Senator since 12 July 2007 till 11 July 2019, doing water, agriculture, foreign affairs and European Union affairs. For example, he arranged a majority in favor of the Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement in the Dutch parliament.

Biography

He is a son of a farmer from the Friesland. His father worked as a ‘pioneer’ in one of our new ‘polders’, reclaimed from the sea between 1935 and 1948. In 1948 his family one of the first to start a farm there, specialized in the propagation of seed potatoes.
His first education was agriculture and economy. After his father died, Sybe took over the farm for a few years, before stopping farming.
Later he studied social science and philosophy. Then he wrote dissertation in Amsterdam – Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and habilitation in Charles University.
Essential for his philosophical development were ‘underground’ lectures in Prague, organized by dissidents of Charta 77.
In Czechoslovakia he also developed his love for the eastern part of Europe, what brought him also to Ukraine from 1992.
By incident he was elected as a chairman of one of the Dutch water authorities and later on to president of the Association of water authorities, which started his ‘water career’ and brought him all over the world as an advisor. At the end he was appointed as a professor in water policy at the universities of Delft and Wageningen.
Nowadays he gives philosophical lectures on many locations (Amsterdam, Prague, Delft, Wageningen, Kyiv etc.

Education

Notable resident of Lemmer.