NATO’s 32 member states have still not been able to agree on a new secretary-general after Jens Stoltenberg, who leaves office in the autumn.
Tuesday 2 April at 21:27
A few months ago, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte was the clear favorite to take over from Stoltenberg from 1 October.
But then Hungary came up with strong objections to Rutte. And before Easter, Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis launched himself as a candidate for NATO’s highest office of trust.
When the ambassadors of the NATO countries met in Brussels on Tuesday morning, it quickly became clear that the process of agreeing on a new secretary-general will take additional time.
This is confirmed by VG from sources in NATO headquarters.
The USA wants Rutte
The US still fully supports Mark Rutte. This was confirmed by US NATO ambassador Julianne Smith after the NATO council meeting on Tuesday.
– But we have deep respect for Iohannis’ candidacy, and we wish him the best of luck, Smith said at a press conference.
Rutte has also received support from Great Britain, France and Germany, and from Norway:
– We have a very good relationship with both the Netherlands and Mark Rutte, and a good impression of him. But if I say anything more, it may sound as if we have chosen him, Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide told VG in November.
Support from several
Estonia and Lithuania also marked their support for Rutte on Tuesday, according to the news agency DPA.
But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who spoke to Mark Rutte on the phone on Sunday, was not as clear: Turkey will choose the secretary-general based on its own needs, according to a statement from the president’s office.
Erdogan told Rutte directly that the next secretary-general must counter terrorism and must take on the additional needs of NATO countries that are not members of the EU.
Expectation
There has been an expectation at NATO headquarters that the member states could agree on Stoltenberg’s successor before the NATO foreign ministers’ April meeting, which starts in Brussels on Wednesday.
When that is unlikely to happen, it may be delayed even further until the EU elections in June and the NATO summit in Washington in the summer.
If the countries still have not agreed by the time of the summit, there is a possibility that the heads of state and government will have to go to Stoltenberg and once again ask him to extend his working agreement with NATO.
