Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte arrives for the European Political Community Summit at the Palacio de Congreso in Granada, southern Spain, on October 5, 2023.
Jorge Guerrero | Afp | Getty Images
Romanian President Klaus Iohannis on Thursday withdrew his bid to lead the NATO military alliance and pledged his support to the favorite candidate for the post, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
Iohannis announced his decision during a meeting of the Supreme Council of National Defense and said he had informed NATO allies of his withdrawal at the end of last week, according to a statement from the Romanian presidency translated by CNBC.
The move effectively paves the way for outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Rutte to take over the top job of the 32-member, US-led NATO military coalition when acting Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg ends his mandate on October 1 after 10 years in office.
Secretaries general must receive unanimous support from NATO allies. Iohannis had already announced his intention to enter the coalition leadership race in March, championing the merits of a renewed Eastern European perspective amid the ongoing war in Romania’s neighboring Ukraine. Iohannis, 65, is ending his second five-year term at the helm of Romania, where national elections will be held in September.
Rutte, a staunch Ukraine ally, is widely seen as the favorite to win the top NATO job but has faced – and recently overcome – resistance from Hungary, which has long had friendlier relations with Russia. Two weeks ago, Budapest agreed not to block the NATO alliance’s increasing military support for Ukraine in exchange for not participating in it.
Days later, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban – a self-proclaimed peacemaker – announced that Rutte had vowed to honor that agreement and subsequently confirmed Hungary’s support for the Dutch prime minister’s candidacy.
“After yesterday’s meeting in Brussels, Prime Minister Mark Rutte confirmed that he fully supports this agreement and will continue to do so should he become the next Secretary General of NATO. Given its commitment, Hungary is ready to support Prime Minister Rutte’s bid for NATO.” “Secretary General,” said Orban.
Stoltenberg’s term ends at a critical time for the alliance, which faces the ongoing challenge of responding to the war in Ukraine. While Kiev is not a member of the coalition – and cannot join it while an active conflict rages within its borders – NATO allies generally view Moscow as a threat to European security should the conflict spill over into the wider region. This possibility has already led to the expansion of the coalition, as Finland and Sweden abandoned their longstanding neutrality policies and joined NATO in the more than two years since the invasion of Ukraine.
Just a month before crucial U.S. elections, NATO will welcome a new secretary general who could radically redefine relations between the alliance and the world’s largest economy. Incumbent President Joe Biden, who has thrown his hat in the ring for a second term, is a staunch supporter of Kiev. Among other things, his administration passed a major foreign aid bill that provided more than $60 billion for Kiev, and the White House in recent weeks lifted some restrictions on the defensive use of weapons it supplies to Ukraine against targets in Russian territories.
Former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has previously criticized NATO and allies for failing to meet the coalition’s formal spending target of 2% of their GDP. He has also threatened to drastically cut U.S. funding to Ukraine.
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2024-06-20 17:49:07
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