The Diplomat
The acting Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, has become the only candidate to succeed Jens Stoltenberg as Secretary General of NATO, after the President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, announced yesterday the withdrawal of his candidacy and that the Hungarian Government decided to lift the veto against the Dutch leader.
Klaus Iohannis announced yesterday to the Supreme Council of National Defense (CSAT) of Romania that he had informed NATO of the withdrawal of his candidacy, presented last March, and the Government of Bucharest then announced, in a press release, his support for Ruttre.
On Tuesday, the Hungarian government of ultranationalist Viktor Orbán announced that it would support the Dutch prime minister after he committed to Budapest not to involve Hungary in future NATO actions to support Ukraine if he is elected secretary general. Hungary thus joins Slovakia, which had also threatened to veto Rutte and whose president, Peter Pellegrini, announced on Tuesday that he would support the Dutch leader.
“This means that we are very close to making a decision,” declared current NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. “I will not be the one to decide who my successor will be, as it is something that corresponds to the NATO member countries, but I am happy that we are close to a decision,” he continued. “Hungary was one of the few countries that opposed Mark Rutte and, now that he has shown his support, he is very close to being elected,” he added.
With this change in outlook, everything indicates that Mark Rutte will have the unanimous support of the 32 NATO allied countries to be elected secretary general of the organization during the next Summit, which will be held in Washington from July 9 to 11. Spanish government sources have made it clear that Spain will accept the consensus candidate.
Mark Rutte will succeed Jens Stoltenberg, who has been in office since 2014 and was scheduled to resign last year. Rutte will serve for at least four years, during which NATO will have to deal not only with Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, but with the potential decline in US support should Donald Trump return to the White House. in the November presidential elections. In one of his usual outings, Trump has even asked Russia to invade allies who do not invest in his Army.
Rutte has served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands since 2010 and plans to end his term on July 2. After the elections last November, very favorable to the far-right Geert Wilders, the VVD, Rutte’s liberal party, reached an agreement to form part of a coalition led by former spy chief Dick Schoof.
As Prime Minister, Mark Rutte has maintained important differences with the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, but he has also promoted some important proposals with him to relaunch the European Union.
Spain and the Netherlands maintained major disagreements during negotiations on the European recovery fund after COVID-19 and on the Spanish proposal to set a rate on energy prices and decouple gas and electricity prices. However, these differences did not prevent Pedro Sánchez and Mark Rutte from presenting a proposal for European technological and health strategic autonomy, “without isolationism or protectionism”, in March 2021, nor from the fact that both Governments have agreed to propose reforms in European tax rules.
