Rob Heirbaut is Europe expert at VRT NWS. He was born in Sint-Niklaas (1967), and successively studied law and communication sciences at the University of Ghent. In 1992, he started work as a lawyer at the foreign policy department of the Ministry of the Flemish Community. At the end of 1993, he was able to start as a journalist at the VRT TV news service. There he has been reporting on the ins and outs of the European Union since 2002. Together with Ghent professor Hendrik Vos, he wrote the book "How Europe affects our lives" (2008). They received the Wablieft prize for plain language for this book. In 2019, they published their second book: "Europe in turbulent waters". Rob Heirbaut and Hendrik Vos co-created the television series "The Iron Curtain" for Canvas in 2014, 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. As a child, Rob Heirbaut loved playing football and gymnastics. Nowadays, cycling is his passion. He is one of the driving forces behind the "24 hours of Bindkracht", in which participants try to cycle as many kilometres as possible to raise money for vzw Binkdracht, a project for young people with disabilities, of which Rob is one of the godparents.
