The Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, was officially appointed to the position of Secretary General of NATO. This is reported on the official website of the North Atlantic Alliance. Representatives of all 32 member countries of the organization voted for this decision on June 26.
Rutte will take up his duties on October 1, when the mandate of the current Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, who has held this position for ten years since 2014, ends.
Before that, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán confirmed that he no longer opposes Mark Rutte’s candidacy.
He stated that it was crucial for him to have the next Secretary General of NATO endorse his agreement with Jens Stoltenberg, which states that Hungary “will not participate in NATO’s activities in Ukraine and no Hungarian funds will be used to support it.”
The prime minister of Hungary stated that Rutte had promised to support this agreement during their meeting in Brussels and would do so even after he becomes NATO Secretary General.
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Mark Rutte was the longest-serving prime minister in the modern history of the Netherlands. He first became the head of the government in 2010.
It is worth noting that during his tenure, this country provided a large amount of military aid to Ukraine to fight against the Russians.
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Only recently, the Netherlands reported that, together with another country, they are preparing to provide Ukraine with the Patriot air defense system.
Additionally, the Netherlands and Ukraine decided to work together to provide financial assistance to Ukrainian arms manufacturers. The country’s government has already decided to allocate 60 million euros for the purchase of drones for various purposes by the Ukrainian Defense Forces.
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