He was member of Parliament for the Labour Party between 2003 and 2006 and was Minister for Foreign Trade within the Ministry of Economic Affairs from 2006 till 2010.

[1][2] He serves as an executive director at the Board of the World Bank Group, and represents the constituency of Armenia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Georgia, Israel, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, The Netherlands, Romania and Ukraine.

He was in charge of the Water, Buildings, and Infrastructure business lines, and responsible for Group Finance and ICT.

From 2003 to 2006, he was a member of the House of Representatives of the Netherlands, where he was spokesman of the Dutch Labor Party (PvdA) on financial supervision, economic affairs and health care reforms.

In parliament he specialized in the relationship between market and government and with the reform of the health care system.