Rutte: Frontrunner for NATO top job with no certainty to get it 

With less than a year to go, former Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte has become a frontrunner in the race to succeed outgoing NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. But the informal selection criteria have once again shone a light on the complexity of the process.

NATO’s leadership debate is heating up as Stoltenberg is set to step down next October after 13 years at the helm and the race for his successor will continue for months.

“Such a role would be interesting as it would offer the chance to contribute for a few years on the international stage in a period of dramatic global changes”, Rutte said in October, on the eve of national elections and his retreat from national politics.

Rutte’s open lobbying for the position has raised some doubts as the unspoken consensus in Brussels is that those who announce their candidacy too early on would be put under the spotlight and “burn” before talks even start.

The Dutchman is, however, not new to the debate. When the leadership race was on last year, several NATO diplomats told Euractiv their countries would support the then-prime minister if he were to run but Rutte insisted he would not quit his government job.

A year later, once his government coalition fell in the summer, he was quick to officially declare his interest.

An experienced candidate

Selecting a new NATO boss is a highly political process, as s/he will ultimately be a key powerbroker in mediating between the security and defence interests, challenges, and threats to shape the military alliance’s policy of defence and deterrence.

What comes into play are the required qualities for the post – from experience, level of commitment to defence spending, nationality and gender, to actual availability.

The selection process involves NATO’s major military powers, especially the US, leading the decision-making process, with a required consensus among all 31 members.

Three NATO diplomats told Euractiv that Rutte is “the only candidate”, at least for now.

Latvia’s former prime minister and now foreign minister Krišjānis Kariņš, as well as Estonia’s prime minister Kaja Kallas, have signalled interest but have not shown the commitment yet, the diplomats said.

In NATO corridors, there is currently a clear push in favour of Rutte, two people with knowledge of the discussions told Euractiv.

As evidence of his experience, the Dutch, who are lobbying for him, are using his impressive resumé, which includes 13 years as prime minister of four right and centre-right coalition governments.

His backers say Rutte, as the longest-serving leader around the NATO table, can be another ‘Trump whisperer’.

Dutch support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia has spearheaded the creation of the F-16 fighter-jet coalition and pushed a hard line for the conviction of those responsible for the crash of the MH-17 in Ukraine in 2014, which killed nearly 200 Dutch nationals.

Ticking the boxes

Despite all that, “there are a few nos”, one NATO diplomat told Euractiv.

The fact that the Netherlands still falls short of reaching NATO’s 2% GDP defence spending target, which they only pledged to reach by 2024, could work against him, Kariņš – and other diplomats – argued when asked about Rutte’s chances.

In NATO, defence spending is seen as proof the country takes burden sharing and collective defence seriously. Former US president Donald Trump, who could be returning to the White House in 2024, made this point very clear.

Speaking of what might work against Rutte, one diplomat said there have already been three Dutch NATO Secretaries-General: Dirk Stikker (1961-1964), Joseph Luns (1961-1974), and Jaap de Hoop Scheffer (2011-2014).

Meanwhile, Eastern and Southern Europeans are currently under-represented in the top jobs, and any decision would also have to be approved by awkward allies Turkey and Hungary.

In addition, in 75 years of the Western military alliance’s history, no woman has ever held the post.

“There is a very big chance, given the political support for it, that this job will go to a European woman, which would also be very good,” Rutte said in October.

Kallas said earlier this month she had heard a “joke” in which the next NATO chief was a woman from a newer NATO member that meets the 2% target – a fairly accurate description of herself.

Decision expected before June

NATO diplomats expect the decision to be taken in the first quarter of 2024, or at least before the European elections set for June.

This way, they argue, the NATO post stays out of the carrousel of the EU’s top jobs distribution.

Nonetheless, it will arguably impact the designation of the portfolio of the next Dutch-appointed European Commissioner.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday (29 November) he would expect that “by the Washington Summit [9-11 July], we’ll be in a position to talk about it more clearly and more directly”.

Stoltenberg would, however, remain at the helm until his mandate ends in October and attend NATO’s glossy 75th anniversary in Washington in July.

“He still has a lot of work to do as we head to the Washington Summit, which is still many months away,” Blinken said.

[Edited by Alexandra Brzozowski/Zoran Radosavljevic]

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