The handover ceremony is scheduled to take place at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Tuesday morning, with Rutte’s first press conference in his new capacity.
Jens Stoltenberg, who previously held the positions of Minister of Industry and Energy, Minister of Finance and Prime Minister of Norway, became the 13th Secretary-General of NATO in 2014.
Stoltenberg’s period as Secretary-General of the Alliance was characterized by the deterioration of relations between NATO and Russia and the cessation of all forms of cooperation between them, and tensions between the United States and European members of the alliance during the time of Donald Trump in the American presidency, and he mentioned China as a strategic opponent of NATO for the first time in history.
During this period, 4 new members joined NATO: Montenegro, North Macedonia, Finland, and Sweden.
Member states pledged to raise their defense expenditures to no less than 2% of their gross domestic product. The alliance gave promises to accept Ukraine as a member in the future on the condition that the necessary reforms are implemented, without specifying any timetable for the process.
According to media reports, Stoltenberg wanted to take the position of Governor of the Norwegian Central Bank after leaving the position of Secretary General of NATO.
Regarding his successor, Mark Rutte, media reports said that his mission will be to ensure the continuation of the approach “in light of the difficult geopolitical circumstances,” and therefore observers believe that there will be no radical changes to the alliance’s policies in the near future.
Source: RT + agencies
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2024-10-02 05:24:27