Dutch politician of the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA).
His father, a former policeman, had a detective agency. As a teenager, Bert assisted in the monitoring work, such as gathering evidence of adultery. After finishing the Mulo middle school, he became an official of the Dutch Tax and Customs administration (1953-56). In the evening, he attended the Higher Civil School (HBS) and again as working student with little time for student pleasures, he studied economics in Groningen.
After working for the province of Groningen (1956-64), he joined the multinational Philips, where he worked from 1964 till 1968 in the finance department. From 1968 to 1978, he worked at the Erasmus University. He graduated at the Free University of Amsterdam in Economics with a thesis on wages policy (Loonquote en loonstructuur, 1975).
When he entered Christian Democratic politics, the hard working Calvinist Bert de Vries had a dull imago. They called him “De Stofjas” (the dustcoat) or “de Drogist”(druggist), when he was talking about loaded social-economic questions in rational and pragmatic terms. But as a man of the middle, he was as a minister of social affairs able to settle difficult social questions as the WAO (Law on Disability Insurance.)
His in politics unusual combination of restraint and adherence to principles, let the Catholic and burgundian prime minister Van Agt remark: “Als die niet in de hemel komt, dan bestaat dat instituut toch niet” (If Bert does not go to heaven, then that institute does not exist).
Bert de Vries was a member of the Dutch parliament from 1978 till 1998. In 1982 he became leader of the CDA. From 1989 till 1994 he was minister of Social Affairs and Employment. In 1990 he was also minister of agriculture after Gerrit Braks had to leave.
From van October 1994 till 1998 he was professor at the Erasmus University.
From 2001 till 2002 he was chairman of the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA). But on 17 November 2010 he announced that he had left the CDA because of the willingness of the CDA to cooperate with the right wing PVV party of Geert Wilders under the First Rutte cabinet of 14 October 2010.
On 12 January 2012 De Vries replaced the ill Van Agt and held a speech for The Rights Forum about the Palestinian question in Den Haag. He admitted that many views on religion he was raised with, needed a revision on closer inspection (“bij nader inzien”).

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