Berend "Bert" de Vries (born 29 March 1938) is a retired Dutch politician of the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) party and economist.
De Vries semi-retired from national politics and became active in the private sector and public sector and occupied numerous seats as a corporate director and nonprofit director on several boards of directors and supervisory boards (Unilever, Energy Research Centre, Tinbergen Institute, NIBC Bank and Arcadis) and served on several state commissions and councils on behalf of the government (Public Pension Funds APB, Sociale Verzekeringsbank, Raad voor Cultuur, Statistics Netherlands, Cadastre Agency, Social Employment Act Commission and the Social and Economic Council).
De Vries also worked as a trade association executive for the Nederlandse Vereniging van Ziekenhuizen serving as chairman of the executive board from June 1995 until August 2001 and as an advocate, lobbyist and activist for the Anti-war movement, Human rights and the Two-state solution for the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
De Vries served as Chairman of the Christian Democratic Appeal from 10 October 2001 until 2 November 2002 following the resignation of Marnix van Rij.
De Vries continued to comment on political affairs until his retirement in 2018 and holds the distinction as the second longest-serving Parliamentary leader of the Christian Democratic Appeal in the House of Representatives with 6 years, 273 days.
The name Bami agreement refers to the fact that during the consultations in the home of Bert de Vries, a meal of Chinese take-away food was consumed.
[citation needed] After his departure from active politics until 1998 he was part-time professor of financial and economic policy at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam.
After the forced resignation of Marnix van Rij in 2001, De Vries took over as chairman of the Christian Democratic Appeal for a year.