Paul-Henri Spaak

Paul Henri Charles Spaak (25 January 1899 – 31 July 1972) was an influential Belgian politician and statesman also considered as one of the founding fathers of the European Union. Spaak, a member of an influential Belgian political family, served briefly in World War I and rose to prominence after the war as a tennis player and lawyer, becoming famous for his high-profile defence of an Italian student accused of attempting to assassinate the Italy's Crown Prince in 1929. A convinced socialist, Spaak entered politics in 1932 for the Belgian Workers' Party (later the Belgian Socialist Party) and gained his first ministerial portfolio in the government of Paul Van Zeeland in 1935. He became Prime Minister of Belgium in 1938 and held the position until 1939. During World War II, he served as Foreign Minister in the Belgian government in exile under Hubert Pierlot, where he negotiated the foundation of the Benelux Customs Union with the governments of the Netherlands and Luxembourg. After the war, he twice regained the position of Prime Minister, first for under a month in March 1946 and again between 1947 and 1949. He held various further Belgian ministerial portfolios until 1966.