Mark Rutte will be the next Secretary General of NATO and will succeed the outgoing Jens Stoltenberg. The official assignment will only arrive on October 2nd, but the last obstacle to his appointment has now fallen.
Born: Romanian Iohannis withdraws from the race
The outgoing Dutch Prime Minister, a faithful ally of Kiev and critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, received today the support of Romania, last country missing. The turning point came in the morning, when the Romanian president Klaus Iohannis has decided to withdraw his candidacy for the summit of the Atlantic Alliance. During a meeting of the country's National Defense Council, Iohannis made it known that he had already informed his allies and that he had chosen to support Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
He was the last among the leaders of the 32 allied countries who had not yet given his consent to the appointment of the outgoing Dutch prime minister. Hungary and Slovakia they had in fact withdrawn their reservations on Tuesday thanks to some concessions promised by Rutte. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, in particular, requested (and obtained) a guarantee that, during Rutte's mandate, Hungarian soldiers will not participate in NATO activities in Ukraine and that no Hungarian funds will be allocated to these.
The Atlantic Council could now activate the silence procedure to ratify the appointment at any time but, in all likelihood, the assignment will be finalized during the Washington summit scheduled for July 11th. Rutte, as mentioned, will take office on October 2nd, when the mandate of the current secretary Jens Stoltenberg expires, which had already been extended four times, most recently in 2023.
Who is Mark Rutte
Born in '67 in The Hague, Rutte he is one of Europe's longest-serving political leaders, second only to former German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He is part of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), of which he was also the leader for a long time between 2006 and 2023, and is Minister-President of the Netherlands since 14 October 2010. Rutte was defeated in the November 2023 elections, but remained in office as prime minister due to the difficulties encountered in forming a new government: his successor will take office on July 2nd.
Previously he was State Secretary for Social Affairs and Employment from 22 July 2002 to 17 June 2004 and State Secretary for Education, Culture and Science from 17 June 2004 to 27 June 2006 in Governments I and II by Jan Peter Balkenende. He resigned as Secretary of State to become leader of the VVD parliamentary group at Tweede Kamer.
Rutte is from conservative and liberal orientation, pro-market and advocate of austerity. Many have pointed out that, during his 14 years as prime minister, the Netherlands never reached the threshold of 2% of GDP to be allocated to military spending requested by NATO and especially by the USA.
