Mark Rutte is the new secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). His appointment should be formalized during a summit to be held in Washington from 9 to 11 July 2024. The current prime minister of the Netherlands, however, should officially take over from the current head of the Atlantic Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, only on next October 2, 2024.

The new secretary general found his path clear after the green light from the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, and the Romanian president, Klaus Iohannis, who was a candidate for the top of the Atlantic Alliance but who yesterday took a step back, supporting the candidacy of the Dutch prime minister. Initially among those eligible to lead NATO there was also the Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, who however did not convince all the member countries. 

Thus ends the long era of the 65-year-old Norwegian Stoltenberg, whose mandate began in 2014 and was scheduled to expire in 2022, but was then renewed on an interim basis to urgently manage the crisis caused by the Russian military invasion in Ukraine. He is replaced by Rutte, 57 years old, one of the most prominent exponents of the liberal-democratic area in the European Union, former president of the EU Council (2016) and prime minister of the Netherlands (2010-2024), the latter position which he will leave in 2nd of July.