Mark Rutte can’t rescue Nato

No-one really thought that Klaus Iohannis, Romania’s president since 2014, was going to be the next secretary general of Nato. Iohannis put himself forward in March as a candidate who would bring a new perspective to the leadership of the alliance, but it was never a plausible bid. When Romania’s Supreme Council of National Defence announced last week that Iohannis was withdrawing his name, it removed the last obstacle for Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, to be anointed.

Pending formal confirmation, Rutte will take office as 14th secretary general of Nato on 1 October 2024, succeeding Jens Stoltenberg of Norway who has served for a decade. He will be the fourth Dutchman to occupy the post, and comes to Brussels after 14 years as PM of the Netherlands. (This assumes that Dick Schoof, the former intelligence chief selected by the coalition government in the Hague, is formally approved: Rutte resigned in July 2023 and has been in a caretaker role since then.)