Former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte will be Jens Stoltenberg’s successor at the helm of NATO, after the step back by Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, who assured his support. It means that probably at the next American summit on July 9th there could already be an, albeit informal, handover which is instead scheduled as per protocol on October 2nd, when the extension of the former Norwegian prime minister will expire.
Always a liberal, Rutte has characterized himself as leader of the Dutch VVD since 2006. Premier since 2010, he has earned the nickname “Teflon”, because he lets all the criticism slide over him and for this reason he was the second longest-serving European leader after Angela Merkel: an experienced politician capable of interpreting changes and new actors.
A former hawk, who never spared Italy blows, but who today is among the main interlocutors of Giorgia Meloni, with whom the relationship is excellent, as demonstrated by the structured trip to Tunisia of “Team Europe”, in the presence of the prime minister himself Dutch, the number one of the European Commission Ursula Von der Leyen and the Italian prime minister. On that occasion, also thanks to the push of Palazzo Chigi, the 255 million euro aid package for the North African state and for the management of migratory flows was signed and the presence of the three leaders gave that trip a different meaning.
A few days ago, after the G7, Rutte was also present in Switzerland at the summit for peace in Ukraine, promising that the Netherlands «will continue to support Ukraine in every possible way, for as long as necessary and with all the support necessary”. Last February he became the spokesperson for an appeal to all EU countries: “Let’s think about our defense, not about who sits in the White House.” It was the days of the Munich Conference and she proposed to stop complaining about Trump and instead focus on increasing production and spending on defense systems “because it is in our interest.”
Not only an interpreter of the so-called austerity, but capable of acting as a mediator in crucial moments: he did it with the then American president Donald Trump when his administration found itself in fibrillation with the EU and the Dutchman had words for him that were not of rupture “I like this guy!” he said. A circumstance which, in the event of the tycoon’s return to the White House, could be useful to NATO itself for a productive and non-conflictual form of interlocution.
But in the very same hours in which the decision of the 32 on Stoltenberg’s successor was filtering out, Vladimir Putin, engaged in an Asian tour, did not miss his thoughts on the West, with three surgical messages. First, Moscow does not rule out supplying weapons to other countries as a reaction to the delivery of Western weapons to Ukraine: “Those who supply these weapons believe that they are not at war with us, but we reserve the right to supply weapons to other regions.”
Second, the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons will be lowered: “We do not need a preventive attack, because the adversary would certainly be destroyed in a contact”, announcing a revision of the nuclear doctrine.
And third: NATO is already moving towards Asia and that «this, obviously, creates a threat for all countries in the region, including the Russian Federation, we are obliged to react and we will».
Working notes for the new secretary of the alliance.
