In memoriam of Ieke van den Burg by Pervenche Berès
Rode Hoed, Amsterdam
Saturday 11 October 2014

Ieke,

She was a colleague, she was a comrade, she was a friend.
She was a ‘grande dame’, a committed socialist.

Speaking about Ieke, is also a story of a woman in trade union, in politic, about engagement of women to make it better, about a network. Allow me to mention a few of them that did count, MEP or political advisors, first her friend Elisa Ferreira on behave of whom I also speak today. In her word it would sound: ‘Ieke was a fantastic friend’. Around the Charter of fundamental rights, I should mention Anne van Lancker, Elena Paciotti, Anna Colombo and Odilia Henriques, in ECON, Annabel Garnier and Ute Muller or from other political groups Piia Noora Kauppi and Margarita Starkeviciute. Their where also men, but one quit special, the president of the PES at that time, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, with him she worked on the very item of hedge funds and private equity, looking at the social impact of leverage buy out (LBO). This was not a hazard when you now how much this bridge between social issues and financial markets was the matrix factor of her language, of her thought.

We worked together closely on a nearly daily bases during the 10 years she has been a member of the European Parliament. When she was coordinator for the socialists in the ECON committee I was the chair of, in our complicity, I believe I was the bad girl when she was the good one, and indeed she was one.

We shared this conviction that if you want to make life better for people, socialists must care about financial market and not leave it to conservatives, to often allies of the improperly called market powers. Starting in 2002, she was all along very much convinced that something needed to be done to insure financial service supervision after the jump that had been allowed by the financial service action plan.

She also was convinced that ordinary people needed to be protected vis-à-vis the lobbying power of financial market actors, because market can not self regulate and democracy can not be driven by their solo interest. This is why she naturally chaired Finance Watch as a tool for the one without enough voice I contribute to create.

I can remember her with huge file she had so carefully read and annotated in transparent folders so she could enter into negotiation. Because she had a very clear idea of where she wanted to end up, in line with her mission, what she was standing for, our vision as socialist, she could wait until it could be achieve. In between she would argue and argue, never cry, never lose her temper, but do it step by step, listening, understanding, convincing and delivering.

Ieke was a great and honest personality. Always at disposal for others and acting with large solidarity. She put so much energy into so many projects and objectives but her needs at the very end of her « to-do-lists ». A hard worker, but a team worker.
If you went to convince young people to engage in politic, give them her example.

To her daughter, to her family, to her trade union, to the party member here in Netherlands and in Europe, I would like to say, she is leaving us much to early. You can be proud of her, because you were her friend but this I believe you already now it. She is and she remain an example of what it means to engage in politic to defend idea not your ego as Poul Nyrup Rasmussen rightly recall in his memorial. It gives us strength for our current and future battle.