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Overstag, Sicco Mansholt 1908-1995

Documentary, 2009, 80 min.

The butter mountain and the milk lake are notions that will forever be associated with Sicco Mansholt, in 1945 the youngest minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the first Dutch member of the European Commission. Mansholt implemented scale enlargement and agricultural subsidies, as well as fixed minimum prices for farmers. With the best intentions, but eventually with negative consequences: food surpluses and vegetables and fruit that were withdrawn from the market. Relatives, former politicians (including Hans van Mierlo, Max Kohnstamm and Bert Pot), farmers and friends describe an ambitious social-democrat, an honourable and empathic man and a politician with a vision. Besides, the filmmaker could draw from many interviews he did with Mansholt over the years and from radio addresses, home footage, excerpts from his autobiography and old TV programmes featuring Mansholt. A man who at the end of his life saw the consequences his successful agricultural policies had for Third World countries.

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