Timmermans: Multilingual Dutchman aiming to be 'face of Europe'
Frans Timmermans, a contender for Europe's top job, is a polyglot former diplomat with a driving ambition to reach the top in Brussels in order to promote the continent on the world stage.
Grandson to a Catholic family of southern Dutch miners and son to a minor diplomat, the 58-year-old Labour politician spent most of his life outside the Netherlands before becoming its foreign minister and then leaving for the EU in 2014.
Born in Maastricht, the southern city that in 1992 gave its name to the treaty creating the European Union, he went to an English school in Rome and later studied French literature and European law as a postgraduate at France's Nancy University.
He speaks at least six languages including English, French, German and Italian and reportedly Russian.
European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker appointed the articulate Timmermans as his first-vice-president four years ago, saying: "I am the president, but I have delegated a large part of my prerogatives to the vice, ..