NATO top job race: 29 against 3 in favour of Rutte

Less than two months before NATO’s 75th-anniversary summit in Washington, the top job race nomination continues amid political bargaining, with outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte the strongest contender by far.

Rutte is seeing the number of his backers go up, one by one, to the point that he only has three countries left to convince. After 13 years in his government post, he is well on track to becoming the Western military alliance’s next boss.

That is, if his surprise opponent, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, backs down and Rutte manages to persuade the last few capitals to lift their opposition.

Among the ‘naysayers’ are Romania, Hungary, whose government has very strictly spoken against Rutte, and Slovakia, which has yet to speak out, due to domestic reshuffles. Turkey, considered a hurdle a month ago, has removed its reluctance, several people familiar with the process said.

Three of them told Euractiv they do not expect Budapest to persist in opposing Rutte.

It is at the moment, however, unclear if Bratislava will side with Iohannis and therefore somewhat increase his odds, or opt for Rutte, leaving its political ally Hungary as the last hurdle for the Dutchman.

While NATO diplomats hoped for the appointment to happen by the mid-July NATO summit, and in time for incumbent Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s leaving party, that goal is looking increasingly less realistic, several of them said. 

Meanwhile, Rutte’s backers continue to question the intentions of Iohannis, who has been actively looking for an exit from Bucharest in the form of a top job outside of his home country.

Not only has he pitched himself for the NATO position, but his name has also been mentioned for high-level positions within the EU, such as a potential European commissioner for his country.

The military-diplomatic milieu has questioned the ‘seriousness’ of his bid, one person familiar with the discussions said, expecting NATO to be his first choice.

The delay in decision-making has also changed the nature of the appointment, as its timing will now coincide with that of the EU’s top job horse-trading following June’s EU elections. 

The NATO nomination has also become an increasingly political balancing act, although a large majority of NATO members have been cautioning against it in recent months.

While Iohannis’ candidacy was first pitched as an Eastern alternative to the Dutchman Rutte, the latter has successfully won over most of his sceptical counterparts.

Even though Rutte comes from a country that already held the highest NATO post several times, which may have been a deterring factor early on, Eastern Europeans and the Balts now turned in his favour.

Traditionally, NATO jobs are granted based on merit only. However, the political nature of the military alliance means its top-level positions need to reflect geographical balance.

According to this logic, with Rutte as NATO secretary-general, smaller countries, which often consider themselves under-represented in international institutions, thus have a chance of getting another high-level position within the alliance.

Conversely, a Romanian secretary-general would be less likely to surround himself with fellow Eastern Europeans.

[Edited by Alexandra Brzozowski/Zoran Radosavljevic]

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