# Caspar Veldkamp

Caspar Cornelis Johannes Veldkamp (born 23 April 1964) is a Dutch politician and former diplomat currently serving as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Schoof cabinet. Veldkamp previously served as a member of the House of Representatives for the New Social Contract party from December 2023 to July 2024.

## Early career

Veldkamp started working as a policy officer at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1993. He later had postings in Warsaw, Washington, DC, Brussels, and London, and he served as Ambassador of the Netherlands to Israel (2011–2015) and to Greece (2015–2019). In the latter role, he cooperated with Minister of Finance and Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem on the Greek government-debt crisis. His last diplomatic position was as a member of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development's board of directors.
Veldkamp was a long-time member of the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) before he joined the newly-founded New Social Contract (NSC) to participate in the 2023 general election. During the campaign, Veldkamp said he was critical of the "transfer of powers" towards the European Union (EU); he presented the party he joined as an "optimistic party for the dissatisfied citizen". He was elected to the House of Representatives, where his focus was on foreign affairs and migration.

## Minister of Foreign Affairs

After the PVV, VVD, NSC, and BBB formed the Schoof cabinet, Veldkamp was sworn in as Minister of Foreign Affairs on 2 July 2024, succeeding Hanke Bruins Slot. The cabinet reversed the commitment of its predecessor, made following the 2021 Taliban offensive, to allow Afghan guards of the Dutch embassy and Task Force Uruzgan to relocate to the Netherlands. In his first days as minister, he attended the 2024 NATO Summit in Washington, DC, where he met with Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz. Veldkamp announced that the Netherlands would push for the EU to declare Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps a terrorist organisation. When the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in November 2024, Veldkamp said that the warrant would be respected if Netanyahu were to visit the Netherlands. An intended trip to Israel by Veldkamp was postponed the same day, after his plans, kept secret for security reasons, had been leaked.
During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Veldkamp said the Netherlands should support Ukraine as much as possible, notably through military aid. He declared that the NATO norm for countries to spend at least 2% of gross domestic product on defence was insufficient. However, Veldkamp also argued that security concerns in Eastern Europe should not distract from other developments. He mentioned the rise of the Global South and the shift of the global centre of gravity to the east, in particular, and he predicted conflicts in Asia would dominate the century. Following the 2025 Trump–Zelenskyy meeting, which marked the first time in history a sitting US president verbally attacked a visiting head of state on camera, Veldkamp stated Europe had entered a "new era", adding, regarding European leadership distrusting the US: "We have all become Gaullists".

## Electoral history

Electoral history of Caspar Veldkamp :
| Year | Body | Party | Party | Pos. | Votes | Result | Result | Ref. |
| Year | Body | Party | Party | Pos. | Votes | Party seats | Individual | Ref. |
| 2023 | House of Representatives | | New Social Contract | 4 | 2,386 | 20 | Won | |