Eindhoven will have a mayor who will soon cycle through the city. Someone who talks about ‘our mother’ and who will follow the matches in the PSV stadium. And meanwhile, he is appealing to his contacts in The Hague and Brussels to release millions for Brainport. Reporter Rogier van Son visited the new mayor of Eindhoven: Jeroen Dijsselbloem.
Jeroen Dijsselbloem’s house is located in the middle of nature in Wageningen. He lives there with his wife. Their two sons have left home. No doorbell here, but an old-fashioned knocker to indicate that you are there.
“We are looking for a nice house with a garden, because we have a dog.”
They have to move to Eindhoven within a year. “We have already secretly looked at Funda. A little anticipation. We are looking for a nice house with a garden, because we have a dog.”
He quickly clears up the breakfast plates with his wife and then we can film inside. “Welcome, do you want coffee?”, he asks hospitably. Dijsselbloem looks relaxed. The tension is gone. Because on Tuesday he finally got clarity after the city council had chosen him. “The last hour you are in uncertainty. What’s going to happen? I really had no idea.”
Eindhoven expressed a preference for a woman in advance. It became a man. “My 89-year-old mother said, ‘It’s going to be a woman. Forget it.’ She was gloomy about it. I said I was going to try it anyway because I really wanted to. Ultimately, it is up to the council to weigh it up.”
His goal is to serve two terms, twelve years in total. “You need time to really get to know the city.”
“It’s a new role for me. There is no instruction book.”
As finance minister, he could look strict, the chairman of the confidential committee said on Tuesday. This morning Dijsselbloem is laughing out loud. “Everyone always wants more money from the finance minister. Then you also have to be strict. Then you get the image of strict and serious.”
As mayor, he wants to be close to the people. “After all, the mayor is the one people know best or, hopefully, the first to address.” He doesn’t know yet how he will become so approachable.
Dijsselbloem has never been mayor before. “It’s a new role for me. There is no instruction book. It is important that you leave room in your agenda so that it does not get bogged down with administrative meetings.”
“I was in the boys’ ranks at PSV, five guilders for a ticket.”
Where the current mayor John Jorritsma sometimes had the official car drive over the bus lane to get somewhere faster, Dijsselbloem will soon prefer to cycle through the city by bike. “That seems wonderful to me. I worked in The Hague for a long time. I have to travel a lot on the train and in the car for work. For the first time I now live right at work.”
Dijsselbloem returns to the city where he was born and where he lived for a large part of his childhood. His father worked at a secondary school in Eindhoven.
Dijsselbloem went to a school on the other side of town because ‘my father didn’t want his own children at school’. During this period he started visiting PSV matches. “I was in the boyhood rank. That was five guilders for a ticket, in the corner of the stadium.”
“My mother lives in Son. We come there a lot.”
At the age of nineteen he went to study in Wageningen and he still lives there. He has not forgotten Eindhoven all these years. “My family lives in and around Eindhoven. My mother lives in Son. We come there a lot.”
All those years he was away from his city, he had to carry something tangible with him. It became a miniature car with the PSV logo on it. “I carried this with me all my life. It was also on my desk at the Ministry of Finance. I have been a PSV fan all my life. I had little time to go to PSV. In this way, the club was always present.” As mayor, he will certainly visit competitions again soon.
There is a knock. A flower from Mayor John Jorritsma and his wife. Dijsselbloem also gets a lot of text messages from friends who send him courses in Brabant. “My wife thinks it will come back very soon once we live in Eindhoven. Bye! See you in Eindhoven.”
Tuesday 13 September is Dijsselbloem’s first day as mayor of Eindhoven.
