AGI – Mark Rutte he is a long-time liberal politician, leader of the Dutch VVD from 2006 until 2023. He has been prime minister of the Netherlands since 2010, despite the defeat in the November elections, when the xenophobic Wilders triumphed with 23.5% of the votes. Nonetheless, a new government has not yet been formed in The Hague and Rutte is still prime minister. Rutte will succeed the Norwegian from October 1st Jens Stoltenberg who has been Secretary General of NATO since 2014. Skilled in international relations, Rutte is among the heads of government who are currently negotiating the EU’s top jobs. For the EPP there is the Polish Tusk and Greek Mitsotakis, for the PSE, Spanish Sanchez and German Scholzfor the liberals French Macron and the Dutch prime minister himself. Rutte has always been a rigorist in EU public finances, a thorn in the side of Italy which in 2023, according to Eurostat, has a debt/GDP ratio above 137%. To ingratiate himself with Giorgia Meloni, despite the different points of view on the accounts, Rutte flew with von der Leyen and the Italian Prime Minister in Tunis for the 255 million euro aid package to support the North African state budget and for the management of migratory flows.
Rutte is an inflexible man even in his personal life: in May 2020 his mother died. The prime minister, to respect the restrictions on the coronavirus, only went to visit her on the last night, after eight weeks of forced distance. “I don’t want to violate the rules” said Rutte. His favorite restaurant is Italian. It’s called ‘L’Impero Romano’. It’s the place where he took Giuseppe Conte, then Prime Minister, to dinner on his visit to The Hague. And it’s the same place where on the weekend Rutte allows himself a moment of relaxation with his sister. His favorite dish is minestrone. Before his political career Rutte was a manager of the multinational Unilever, responsible for human resources. At university he studied history. The son of Protestant entrepreneurs and the youngest of seven brothers, Mark Rutte has had several deaths in his family: before his mother, the prime minister lost his father, a sister and a brother, the latter who died of AIDS in 1989. He loves art and music. Rutte is a failed pianist. A Feyenoord fan, Rutte is a bachelor: unbreakable even in the face of love. Frugal to the core, he still lives in the apartment he got after university and in the city, when his commitments allow it, he only travels by bike or at most with an old second-hand Saab.
