On video: Drama in the Netherlands: Far-right leader Geert Wilders won the election/Reuters
The former Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Dries van Echt and his wife Eugenie, underwent joint euthanasia last week, at the age of 93. The couple had been married for 70 years, and had four children.
Van Echt, a Catholic Christian, served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 1977 to 1982.
He was the first leader of the center-right Christian Democratic People's Party, but over the years his positions changed and he moved to the left.
In the local media he was described as a Catholic man who always chose his own path - together with his wife, whom he always called "my girl".
Their deaths were announced by the Rights Forum, a pro-Palestinian organization founded by Van Echt in his later years, which said they were "hand in hand" until the last moment.
The director of the forum, Gerard Yunkman, told the NOS channel that the two were very ill, "but they couldn't be one without the other."
Van Echt never recovered from a stroke he suffered in 2019.
together until the end.
Dries van Echt and his wife Eugenie/Reuters
Their deaths are part of a growing trend in the Netherlands of so-called "couple euthanasia".
Alec Swart, a spokeswoman for an organization that fulfills about a thousand requests for euthanasia in the Netherlands every year, said that the couple's request was tested against the strict requirements of each than together.
"Interest in this is increasing, but it is still rare," she said.
"It's pure chance that two people with unbearable suffering, with no chance of relief, and at the same time both want euthanasia."
Euthanasia has been legal in the Netherlands since 2002 for six situations, including "unbearable suffering, with no chance of relief", and "longstanding independent wish for death".
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