Rutte officially appointed as new NATO Secretary General

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte was officially appointed Wednesday morning as the next NATO secretary general. He will succeed Jens Stoltenberg at the head of the Western military alliance on October 1, NATO said.

The ambassadors of the 32 NATO countries officially decided on the appointment on Wednesday, a spokesperson said. Rutte’s appointment was already certain, as the leaders of all 32 member states already expressed their support for him after a lengthy campaign for the job.

Stoltenberg is leaving the office after ten years on the job. He said on social media, “I warmly welcome NATO Allies’ choice of [PM] Mark Rutte as my successor. Mark is a true transatlanticist, a strong leader and a consensus-builder. I wish him every success as we continue to strengthen NATO. I know I am leaving NATO in good hands.”

It is still unclear whether Rutte will appear at the NATO Summit in Washington D.C. in two weeks, which will mark the alliance’s 75th anniversary. NATO diplomats pointed out that Stoltenberg also attended a NATO Summit ten years ago as incoming secretary general.

The alliance will say goodbye to Stoltenberg at the Summit, who stayed on the job much longer than initially intended. The NATO countries asked him several times to remain in office, because they wanted to maintain his experience and calmness because of the war in Ukraine and rising tensions with Russia.

However, one of the reasons Stoltenberg stayed in the position was the lack of a suitable replacement. The alliance thinks that they have now found the appropriate replacement. The concerns regarding Rutte being another Western European man who will lead NATO are not as significant as expected. NATO ambassadors said he would do well to remind himself of this when putting together his staff.

The 57-year-old Rutte is the fourth Dutch person to lead the Western military alliance. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who left the position in 2009, was the last Dutch person to lead NATO. No other country has had as many of its people in the secretary general position.

The longest-serving Dutch prime minister announced last summer that he would leave the political landscape in The Hague after the fourth Cabinet had fallen under his leadership. The new Cabinet will come into office around the same time as his appointment, so it will be a seamless transition.