Outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said he considers the virtually assured confirmation of his appointment as NATO’s next secretary general “extremely honourable.”
The path has been cleared for Rutteafter the president of Romania, Klaus Iohannis will withdraw from the race on Thursday for the highest civilian position in the military alliance, leaving the Dutchman as the only contender and offering his support for his candidacy.
In statements to the press, Rutte explained his reasons to lead NATO. “I hadn’t really looked for it at first, but with everything that is happening in Ukraine and the instability in the world, and with some people thinking I could do it, I thought it couldn’t just be left out like that. Of course, it is a position incredibly interesting“he told reporters.
“It took a long time, it’s a complicated process. But it seems to me extremely honorable that things seem to be going well,” Rutte added in reference to his on-track appointment, which could be sealed with a NATO ambassadors meeting in the next daysor when President Joe Biden and his Atlantic Alliance counterparts meet for a summit in Washington in July.
Romania removes the last obstacle
Romania It was the last country that offered resistance after the lifting of the Hungarian vetowhich led to the current NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenbergto assure on Tuesday that they were “very close” of being able to reach a decision.
Mark Rutte faced a series of scandals during his tenure as prime minister in the Netherlands. His third coalition government resigned in early 2021 over a scandal involving investigations into child welfare payments that wrongly labeled thousands of parents as scammers.
But just a few months later, Rutte managed to recover, by leading his conservative People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy to victory in the national elections and creating his fourth and final coalition with the same parties that resigned to trigger that vote. Government would end up dissolving in 2023 given the “insurmountable differences” on immigration policy between the coalition partners.
