The way is clear for the appointment of Mark Rutte as the next Secretary General of NATO. Romania was the last member state to announce that it would give up its opposition to the appointment. The Dutchman is to succeed Stoltenberg.
Mark Rutte can expect to be elected as the next Secretary General of NATO. After months of blockade, Romania was the last member of the alliance to announce that it would give up its opposition to the top post being given to the outgoing Dutch head of government. Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis withdrew his own candidacy, the presidential office in Bucharest announced. At the same time, Romania now supports Rutte’s candidacy, it said.
Rutte’s election will be officially completed at the NATO summit in Washington from 9 to 11 July.
Other countries had given up concerns
Hungary, Slovakia and Turkey had already taken this step recently. For a long time, these three countries, together with Romania, were the only NATO states that still blocked the appointment of 57-year-old Rutte as Jens Stoltenberg’s successor.
Hungary recently gave up its resistance after Rutte agreed to Hungarian demands. One of the issues was that Hungary wanted to be sure that it would not be pressured into participating in a planned NATO mission to coordinate arms deliveries to Ukraine. Viktor Orban’s government fears that the project could push the alliance into a direct confrontation with Russia.
Until recently, Romania still had its own candidate in the race for the top job, President Iohannis. He announced his opposition candidacy in March. The Romanian justified this by saying that Eastern Europeans were underrepresented in NATO.
Germany and USA early for Rutte
The USA, Germany, Great Britain and France, on the other hand, had already spoken out in favour of Rutte in February. Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared that the Dutchman was an “outstanding candidate” with his “immense experience, his great security policy expertise and his pronounced diplomatic skills”.
Rutte is considered to be an extremely experienced foreign policy maker. He was head of government of the Netherlands for almost 14 years, longer than anyone before him and thus one of the longest-serving in the EU.
Stoltenberg ten years in office
The contract of the current NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg runs until October 1st. He has already extended his term of office twice because no suitable candidate could be found to succeed him. Stoltenberg has now held the top job for almost ten years. This makes him the second longest-serving Secretary General in the history of the alliance. The longest-serving Secretary General of the alliance was the Dutchman Joseph Luns, who served from 1971 to 1984.
A consensus is required within the defense alliance for the appointment of a new Secretary General. This means that none of the current 32 NATO states may raise an objection to the candidate.