NATO summit to be held in The Hague in 2025

Next year’s NATO Summit will be held in The Hague from June 24 to June 26. The leaders of all 32 member states of the Atlantic alliance will gather at the World Forum, outgoing Foreign Affairs minister Hanke Bruins Slot announced on Friday.

The Summit will be held in the Netherlands for the first time. The three cities eliminated from the race to host the event include Rotterdam, Apeldoorn, and Maastricht. The minister said that The Hague has substantial experience hosting this type of large event. It was judged to have the best facilities and locations.

The meeting will ask a great deal of the residents in the city, Mayor Jan van Zanen acknowledged. The area surrounding the World Forum will be a “hermetically sealed international zone,” he said. He promised the city’s residents that he would promptly inform them of the necessary measures.

A total of 45 government and state leaders will be present, as well as leaders of countries working closely with NATO, like Australia and New Zealand. The president of Ukraine is also scheduled to appear. Around 6,000 delegations and 2,000 journalists are expected to attend the summit.

Organizing the Summit will cost at least 95 million euros. The Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) held in the city in 2014 cost around 50 million euros. This Summit will cost much more because more safety measures are needed, many more delegations are present, and because of inflation over the past decade.

This year, the Summit will be held at the beginning of July in Washington D.C. in the United States, when NATO turns 75 years old. It is possible that the decision of whether Mark Rutte will be the new NATO secretary-general will be announced by then.

Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania are still resisting his appointment. Romania has its own candidate for the position.