Widow of former Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers, Ria Lubbers, has handed away

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The Hague

Ria Lubbers, the widow of former Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers, died final Tuesday on the age of 83. Her household reported this in an obituary in AD and NRC. The reason for her dying has not been disclosed. The funeral will happen privately, the commercial states.

Ria Lubbers was the spouse of CDA member Ruud Lubbers, who was Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 1982 to 1994. She was born as Ria Hoogeweegen on November 12, 1940 in Rotterdam. In 1962 she married Lubbers. They’d two sons and a daughter.

As prime minister’s spouse, Ria Lubbers was usually seen in public. This earned her the nickname of the primary ‘first girl’ of the Netherlands. She additionally didn’t hesitate to criticize her husband in interviews, who was busy together with his work as Prime Minister. “He was married 3 times,” she mentioned, for instance, on Radio Rijnmond in 1992. “After I get house tonight, there’s completely nobody there.”

Longest serving Prime Minister after Rutte

She additionally did loads for charities, such because the Nationale Vereniging de Zonnebloem, a Dutch nationwide volunteer group that works for folks with bodily disabilities.

Ruud Lubbers (1939) was, after Mark Rutte, the longest-serving Prime Minister of the Netherlands. He headed three cupboards. Earlier than that, he was, amongst different issues, Minister of Financial Affairs, member of the Home of Representatives and chief of the CDA. He died on February 14, 2018.

Condolences Bontenbal

CDA faction chairman Henri Bontenbal responded to X: “Unhappy information. We want the Lubbers household a variety of power with this loss.”