Hungary today expressed its disagreement with the possibility that the Prime Minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutte to take over as its secretary general NATOsucceeding Jens Stoltenberg, a post of critical importance amid the war in Ukraine.
“We cannot unequivocally support the candidacy of a secretary general who in the past wanted to bring Hungary to its knees,” Foreign Minister Peter Szijjártó said at a press conference in Budapest. “It would be unexpected of us,” he added.
Mark Rutte has repeatedly criticized the state of the rule of law in the nationalist prime minister’s Hungary Viktor Orban. In 2021, angered by a Hungarian law he deemed homophobic, he said Hungary “no longer has a place in the European Union” and if EU values didn’t suit him, Orbán had no choice but to trigger Article 50 of the Treaty ” created for this purpose’ and leave the block.
The name of the outgoing prime minister of the Netherlands has been heard more and more lately for the position of the secretary general of NATO. For his appointment, however, unanimity of the member countries is required. The 57-year-old Rutte is supported by the US, Germany and Britain.
He announced last year that he intends to retire from Dutch politics, but will remain in his post until a new government is formed. Negotiations between the parties continue after November’s election, which was won by far-right Geert Wilders. Orban had then hailed the “wind of change” in the Netherlands.
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