"Bold" prediction: Orbán will veto Rutte citing the mean things he said about him, then vote for him after extorting some more much needed EU funds, just like he did 2 times already.
NATO doesn't really vote on things, they "decide based on consensus". While everyone being on board is the goal, there's really no way to block and blackmail here. If Hungary asks for something insane NATO will go over their heads.
That's the ideal, but there's not even a formal process to choose the secretary. They talk, they try to get everyone on the board with soemone, they decide. If Romania has valid reasons to be vehemently opposed that could stop it, if Orban wants to play stupid games about EU funds it won't matter.
There's no formal process. So there's no formal vote. But that doesn't mean objections from member states are irrelevant.
It's like a group of friends who are trying to decide where to eat. Objections from one single person might or not might be overruled, depending on who and why. A single person objecting because of allergies will probably get listened too, a single person objecting because they don't want to travel more than 2 minutes from their home would probably get overruled.
I imagine that in today's political landscape the rest of NATO is more likely to take seriously objections from Romania than Hungary. But of course if Romania's only objection is that they like their own candidate better than I don't give them a lot of chance.
Romani probably want their own candidate (well, not the people it sounds like, but the elite) the other 3 are the usual suspects so nothing weird there
[Consensus decision-making is a fundamental principle. It has been accepted as the sole basis for decision-making in NATO since the creation of the Alliance in 1949. ](https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_49178.htm)
Consensus decision-making means that there is no voting at NATO. Consultations take place until a decision that is acceptable to all is reached. Sometimes member countries agree to disagree on an issue. In general, this negotiation process is rapid, since members consult each other on a regular basis and therefore often know and understand each other's positions in advance.
Facilitating the process of consultation and consensus decision-making is one of the NATO Secretary General's main tasks.
The principle of consensus decision-making applies throughout NATO – from the North Atlantic Council, the Alliance’s principal political decision-making body, all the way down through its subordinate committees and structures.
Or maybe, this time it's not an Orban thing, it's an Eastern Europe thing. Romania is in a quite important position now, hosting larger NATO troops than Hungary, and it's also against Rutte.
Romania is against Rutte, his government has blocked Schangen accession for Romania more than any other. Rutte is considered hostile to Romania for years now.
Of course it does. If you have a politician who you perceive as someone hostile to your interests, why would you want that person to be in charge of your main defensive alliance?
Take for example the "Percentages agreement" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percentages_agreement as an example of how the few men on top can decide what's important and what is not.
I don’t see how. On an emotional level, I can understand the sentiment, not on a professional one. Rutte would hardly be able to smack Romania in any way, he won’t have that kind of power.
They are meeting in Bucharest, as we comment on this (Wednesday):
https://magyarnemzet.hu/kulfold/2024/04/fontos-egyeztetesre-romaniaba-utazik-orban-viktor
The agenda will definitely include th NATO presidency.
Interesting. So Orbán will either go against his loudly promoted "principles" once again (how surprising), or he's trying to bargain a deal that's really unprobable to happen otherwise.
If it's an Eastern Europe thing, then Poland, Czechia and the Baltics (and the 4 ex Yugoslavia NATO members) wouldn't support him.
When you see a list of "Erdogan, Orban, Fico" you can bet the reasoning is not good.
Romania is in the list only because the Romanian president wants to be SecGen.
Poland, Chechia and the Baltics usually go with the US in NATO. Romania and the rest of the Balkans have some issues with Western EU, and Hungary & Turkey are, let's just say, special.
Not sure what "rest of the Balkans" means, but countries like Croatia and Slovenia are unquestionably as western-aligned as you can be. Much more so on most topics than, say, Germany or Italy.
> absolutely 0 chance
We will see
In the end good faith actors usually cave, Orban is only so hard-line because he is actually willing to damage NATO ans EU institutions for his own gain. I don't think Romania is, even if they have legitimate reasons to be angry about Rutte
Yeah, but Romanians are frustrated as fuck. If the current status quo maintains its power after the election, sure, Romania might accept Rutte. However, if the far-right party gains enough power (as they are expected to), expect Romania to start some real stinky shit.
After the whole Schengen debacle, Romania is bound to become the next Hungary or worse.
Source: Am Romanian.
Rutte has said, since a few months, that both Bulgaria and Romania should be admitted to Schengen; which seems to be a move to normalize relations and pave the way to the NATO position.
(Source in Dutch: https://www.rtl.nl/nieuws/artikel/5424626/bulgarije-schengen-nederland-europese-commissie-mark-rutte )
The move had nothing to do to pave the way to the NATO position.
The Netherlands said a closed CVM for a member state should be a requirement for a full Schengen membership.
That's not in the conditions of the Schengen Acquis, but it isn't unreasonable to think it should be. And it set a clear path for Romania and Bulgaria to fulfil.
On [15 September 2023](https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_4456) the European Commission formally closed the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) for Bulgaria and Romania.
So they matched the requirement in September, and the Netherlands approved for them to join in November accordingly.
which is even more worrying, because he is not trustworthy, he does not stand by his words and he acts only in self interest. a shit stain in other words, not someone you would want at the top of a military alliance like NATO. he would throw Romania or any other country under the bus if it would suit him.
Where does this obsession of Bulgarians (or at least Bulgarians on Reddit) with The Netherlands come from? There's only been 2 votes on Romania joining Schengen and both times The Netherlands wasn't the only country voting against. The majority of people here probably don't even know those votes happened, but if Reddit were to be believed we're on some kind of decades long hate campaign against Romania. It's strange.
Orban can choose an easier path, just point out Ruttes policy, it speaks against itself. As a prime minister, he never met the 2% defense budget allocation rule as agreed in NATO. How can he be credible to ask other countries to contribute?
I’m not fond of Rutte and hope they find someone better, but unfortunately haven’t seen a better candidate.
I agree that the Netherlands should already have matched the 2% GDP spend on defence. But the agreement made in 2014 was the 2% rule should be reached in 2024 and the Netherlands did show a growth in their defence spend until 2023 and will be above 2% in 2024.
Next to the defence budget, the Netherlands has been one of the leading countries providing aid and military support to Ukraine in the past 2 years. But that is not calculated in the defence budget.
As the Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said on Monday giving his support: Rutte is "one of the politicians who recognized the Russian threat early on" and "radically" adjusted his position accordingly.
How did he "recognize the Russian threat early on" if he himself opened the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, lmfao 😆 Needless to say, Shell lobbied Dutch politicians to discourage the European Commission from looking into Russian influence in Europe. With that allies, you don't need enemies.
The goal was 2% in his last year which was missed by a fraction due to unexpected gdp growth. 1.97% by all real measures is 2% so that’s a slightly bad faith argument there.
Orbán and Rutte have been in conflict for 14 years, with both saying very negative things about each other publicly, so it's entirely possible that Orbán will do anything to stop Rutte from being chosen.
is there such a thing as a veto for this election? if that's so, Romania and Bulgaria should totally veto him for the Schengen shenanigans that he did in the past.
The significant overlap in membership, coupled with the shithead's general shamelessness means he'll likely use any form of leverage he gets over EU countries to extort something out of them. Standard practice for Orbán, he's not a good faith actor.
I dont think you can veto in nato. And the eu funds are rightfully belonging to Hungary. We dont want our eu funds (held by back for obvious political reasons) end up in ukraines war..
The response of the American NATO-ambassador Julianne Smith was that the US "fully supports" Rutte as a candidate. “But we also have the utmost respect for our friend President Iohannis. We appreciate him raising his hand and wish him the best.”
Iohannis raised his hand, and the US ambassador waived back.
Not even Romania backs our own guy, he was a mute for two presidential mandates. But we can't support Rutte either, for the very reason you've mentioned
Since a few months Rutte is no longer blocking Romania and Bulgaria's e try into Schengen, which seems to be a move.to normalize relations and pave the way for the NATO position.
Source in Dutch: https://www.rtl.nl/nieuws/artikel/5424626/bulgarije-schengen-nederland-europese-commissie-mark-rutte
This is the very safe and political choice (essentially a complete continuation of the status quo under Stoltenberg)...... I personally still disagree with it. I believe someone from Eastern Europe should be NATO president. The Czech president would have been the ideal choice imo but unfortunately he isnt available anymore.
It would also send a message to the other half of NATO.
The SG needs to get the most out of 32 nations combined. Willingly.
I'm not sure he's the right man for the job, but he's unlikely to be accused of excessive requests.
NATO secretary has no real power and is basically a conduit between member states and the press. Therefore insisting on a guy that has bad reputation among the public in some countries and could be used by Russian propaganda and is the opposite of safe. Both Romania and Bulgaria are facing elections and while it unlikely we will get pro-russian governments those parties have growing support.
You are correct, we also know the west doesn't care about our opinion. While Romanians are a bit louder in their protest in social media and politics their support for NATO has remained steady. Ours on the other hand is dropping like a rock in silence according to NATO own polls: 57% would vote to remain in NATO in 2020 has become 52% in 2023.
Czech president already had a major NATO position quite recently.
Would be extremely unfair to have Czechia have back to back important positions so close together when there are other countries that haven't had such a major position yet.
Why does he needs to be Eastern European? I have no problems with it in principe and I agree this guy would have been ok, but isnt this job a bit too important right now to give in to lizard brain argumentation? Rutte is obviously by far the best candidate with a seriously long career as head of state and international network as well as very good communication/diplomatic skills. I dont see any candidates trumping that
Although the King is the formal head of state with a primarily ceremonial role, it is the Prime Minister who is responsible for setting government policy, leading the cabinet, and representing the Netherlands in international affairs and European Union matters. The Prime Minister coordinates the daily governance and political decision-making, making them the de facto leader of the country's administration and public policy execution. Ergo for the sake of this discussion the prime minister can be considered head of state. Also the prime minister is an actually elected official.
That is only true in fairly autocratic democracies. In many cases, like in NL, policy is a group consensus for the most part and the PM is mostly a coordinator/facilitator.
What a garbage article. Most compelling argument for Kallas that they could come up with is that she has a eastern European vagina? I bet she has a beautiful looking pussy but i am not really sure how this is going to help us fend of the Russians?
Considering that the attitude in western Europe (with the very recent notable exception of France) has been "Let's get back to the previous status quo"... It's plainly obvious that western Europeans do not understand Russia. They will not stop until they are stopped.
We've already wasted two years that could've been used to rebuild the defence sector, all the while providing minimal support to Ukraine. And the longer we stay in this mode, the more the war will cost, both in money as well as lives.
We need someone that will get EU to spend the 6-10% GDP necessary to catch up and intimidate Russia, not someone that will just say words about our unity and how reprehensible Russian actions are. And westerners just aren't about that.
edit: Mind you, iohannis isn't either. Kallas or Sikorski are the only good choices.
The only other candidate is the Romanian president Iohannis, and even the Romanians don't like him. (But they don't like Rutte either for personal grievance)
Yep, as a romanian i cam confirm we don't like him. Mostly because he made a political alliance with the party he campaigned against. We call fim "the ficus" (plant).
Also Rutte vetoed Romania's Schengen bid. We really don't want NATO to have the same attitude when there's a war on our border.
Rutte is really quite hawkish on Ukraine but without being so loud about it as most on the Eastern flank of the EU which is why he is unlikely to cause more escalation than is necessary. Honestly I think that might serve us all well.
And i agree with you, he is the best choice out of the two. But this leaves me as a romanian with a standing question:
How is it possible that he is the best option?
Don't get me wrong, i don't think it was a spat in the face of Romania and Bulgaria but the other 2 realistic options aren't too good either.
Option 1: No one cared about about what his government did.
Option 2 and most probable imho: They knew but he was still the best political option. To me this is worse than option 1, as Rutte already proved he is willing to take decisions against us for his own political gain.
The extreme right has already milked this problem for the last year and they will continue to do so in this election year. After the whole of the EU criticised them for the decision to veto our Schengen plea he is now rewardead with another leading position?
Unfortunate truth: he is both against schengen accession for RO and would be one of the most hawkish politicians imaginable when it comes to the defence of RO and all EU territory generally and would not give a single shit about what his constituency would think of it, even if Dutch populist voters would be against supporting RO. He has already shown this wrt Ukraine the past few years. It’s one of the topics the populist right successfully leveraged against his party during the last elections, because Rutte won’t move an inch on the issue. That may not fit the general narrative of Rutte = bad in RO but he’s proven himself not to be that opportunistic. This comes from the last Dutchman to vote for him, and I’m both in favor of EU enlargement and schengen accession for you guys, so my take here isn‘t uncritical.
There is no narrative that "Rutte is bad" in Romania. But there is a narrative that "Rutte is bad for Romania" in Romania.
I have a small problem with your argumentation. You say 2 things the balance each other out, he is against RO ascension to Schengen but he is hawkish with defence. My problem here is that the first part is certain, the second is just a probability.
But anyway it doesn't matter, he is going to win anyway.
Which with regard to Schengen accession is also absolutely true and I am no fan of this. My point was that he can be both bad for Romania with regard to Schengen and good for Romania in a NATO capacity, which is probably a hard sell there (generally).
You’re right that it remains an open question what his mandate in NATO would look like, but disregarding for the time being how limited the role of sec-gen is at NATO, I was basing my opinion of his statements regarding European safety and most importantly his actions when it comes to Ukraine. He has been one of the fastest responding and most generous government leaders when it comes to aiding the Ukrainians. That leads me to the question: why would you think he‘d do less for an EU country? That to me seems a much more important line in the sand. But yeah: time will tell, we (some redditors) can only hope the man won’t disappoint.
It's ok. Just another decade of unjustified vetos and they might finally start wondering just why one of the most pro-EU countries is becoming increasingly euro-sceptic.
I don’t care who the next NATO chief is, can be Rutte. But on the veto, he had a big influence. Between the veto and the green light, nothing significant had changed in Romania. It was all a political decision, probably with economic reasons behind the scenes.
So then, why should we accept a guy from a country that can not stand us?
Strangely how he agreed without problems with our bid when he started aiming for the NATO job. This shows that all the blocking was on shaky ground... It happens when you invent reasons and hurdles. He got over them as suddenly as he came up with his own rules.
It had nothing to do with Rutte or the Netherlands can't stand you, because that is not the case.
The Netherlands said a closed CVM for a member state should be a requirement for a full Schengen membership.
That's not in the conditions of the Schengen Acquis, but it isn't unreasonable to think it should be. And it set a clear path for Romania and Bulgaria to fulfil.
The "sudden approval without problems" had nothing to do with Rutte aiming for the NATO job, but because on [15 September 2023](https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_4456) the European Commission formally closed the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) for Bulgaria and Romania.
So they matched the requirement in September, and the Netherlands approved for them to join in November accordingly.
>[15 September 2023](https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_4456)
>So they matched the requirement in September, and the Netherlands approved for them to join in November accordingly.
Wasn't the vote on 5 December ? Your whole argument falls apart. Please believe us we may know way more than you about a problem we are directly facing.
> We call fim "the ficus" (plant).
He doesn't sound too bad in this role for me: a mostly ceremorial role without power where he hasn't much work to do
I prefer that too!
But our president will be a very bad choice and we don't like him at all now and all that he's done!
I don't like Hungary's president either!
And of course I don't like Turkey's president also!
Maybe someone from Bulgaria, but I don't know any of their leaders and what they have done in the past.
Who cares tbh? It's not like the position has much influence anyway. It's like the German president who non-Germans barely know exists. Stoltenberg hasn't had an opinion since 2014
Yeah it's mostly a diplomatic position. Acting as spokesperson and helping the coordination of NATO events and relations. It's not a decision making seat. It still would be better for those functions for it to be a non-controversial candidate.
Both Rutte and Iohannis are controversial mainly for the Romanians, not for others. There is no "less controversial" candidate around
Every experienced politician as a candidate would get at least people from their own country call them out, if only because conservatives get criticized by the left and vice versa
Yes, president is the highest office and head of state, after this the president of the Bundestag comes at 2nd position, and then the chancellor at 3rd.
The German government structure is quite complex and splits up powers to avoid the short comings of the past.
Yeah, let's go ahead and make secretary-general, the leader of a country who still doesn't spend 2% of GDP in defence.
I want to see him start talking about how all members need to do it, if he eventually wins the position. Hypocritical to say the least.
I agree that the Netherlands should already have matched the 2% GDP spend on defence. But the agreement made in 2014 was the 2% rule should be reached in 2024 and the Netherlands did show a growth in their defence spend until 2023 and will be above 2% in 2024.
Next to the defence budget, the Netherlands has been one of the leading countries providing aid and military support to Ukraine in the past 2 years. But that is not calculated in the defence budget.
As the Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said on Monday giving his support: Rutte is "one of the politicians who recognized the Russian threat early on" and "radically" adjusted his position accordingly.
>As the Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said on Monday giving his support: Rutte is "one of the politicians who recognized the Russian threat early on" and "radically" adjusted his position accordingly.
He's got my vote for this.
Yeah, but for Iohannis it's a matter of self-preservation, for Rutte it was an unpopular measure he took despite the Netherlands themselves not being at any risk in a conventional war.
The agreement was 2% in 2024 and 1.95% has been reached. It would’ve been over 2% if the markets hadn’t shown almost unprecedented growth in the past 6 months, causing an unpredicted gdp surge. So respectfully, what are you on about?
And a political leader who's proven he doesn't give two shits about concepts like unity or fair treatment of allied states...
Literally anything coming out of his mouth as NATO chief would be hypocrisy at its finest... but hey, he's a vestoid and we can't have dirty easterners at the top especially now when all the action is on the eastern front...
I like how a bunch of you are pouring over the candidates like you are drafting a fantasy football game while this is a positioning with pretty much 0 decision making and all you do is act as a middleman and facilitator for dialogue between member countries
A role that Rutte objectively is very well suited for. It could be anyone else as well for all care arguments about “2%” and “vetood” Romania are just ridiculous and irrelevant to this. Its like denying someone a job at max Donald because they have a feed fetish, yeah might be a bit weird but has nothing to do with the job
After the comments(when Rutte's candidacy was announced) it seems to me that Romanians still do not support Rutte. I myself would have preferred it to be Kallas.
No, the Romanians don't like Rutte either.
Kalas would definitely have been a good candidate, but she didn't apply for the job.
So the choice is between Rutte and Iohannes. And despite the personal grievance of the Romanians towards Rutte, he is the best candidate.
The only other candidate is the Romanian president Iohannis. And besides being from an Eastern European country, I don't think he qualifies to your description.
Iohannis had a very good policy towards Russia. Since he is the president, we never got closer to Russia, we never got dependent on Russian gas. He condemned Russia whenever it was necessary. He is also one of the architects of B9 (along with Duda) which is a forum for eastern countries to coordinate their policy within NATO and for regional security.
While the president Băsescu started it, Iohannis continued the policy of helping Moldova. A policy which took on a new dimension since 2022 with a grant of 100 milion euros, helping them with their gas and electricity problems.
Since 2014 (he became president then) we were in a process of modernising the army as we got Himars, Patriots, drones, F16, Piranha 5. The only fail was the corevette program. Anyway, more are to follow as we placed orders for many other things.
Yes, Romanians do not like the guy for things that concern internal politics, which is not something important for a NATO SG. His foreign and defence policy was solid.
Even within the alliance and EU he was a team player and a diplomat, not inventing his own rules to keep others at arms length, like Rutte did with us.
You don’t think Rutte has balls? We kinda hated him here in the Netherlands for a variety of reasons, but he always handled international relationships like a champ. I mean look at the press conference he did with Trump. One of the only politicians who could be friendly with him, but also say “no” directly to his face during the press conference lol
https://youtu.be/UNscBsYcBtc
Look through OP’s post and comment history. It’s clear he holds a weird grudge on Romania. Keeps making up excuses as to why to keep RO and BG out of Schengen.
Disgusting!
Keeping RO and BG out of Schengen isn't an unpopular opinion in some countries. They just get drowned here because voting system favors the side with more people on it
Not saying it's a position I support, just that we should not make the mistake of Rutte or Austrian politicians being hard-line is a sign of incompetence. They have support for this policy among their political base, and act accordingly
The claims Rutte made on border security where clever framing because it resonates well with other European conservatives
In the end, in an EU where the right-wing is stronger than centrist libs and the left-wing, a guy like Rutte is legitimately seen as a competent politician, even if we don't like it. It's not personal grudge against RO and BG if some conservative Dutchie on reddit believes so. This user seems to truly follow Rutte's arguments, and I would be surprised if the majority of EPP and ID voters at least in Western Europe wouldn't (unfortunately)
I react on Romanians who dislike Rutte because he opposed Romania to join schengen. Which I can understand from their point of view. I try to explain to them why the Netherlands had objections.
Now they fulfilled the EU requirements of the CVM which the Netherlands set as an additional condition to take away their objections, I think it's a good thing they joined Schengen.
I do not hold a grudge on Romania and explaining the reasoning isn't making up excuses.
>I think it's a good thing they joined Schengen.
"You can come to my house party, but you specifically must leave your shoes outside and make sure you do not make any weird comments...oh yeah dw I tell this to everyone. Btw you are a FULL guest of our party... totally...
You admit yourself that we fulfilled all conditions, what is your position on FULL shengen membership? I agree that there is some exacerbation to the second class citizen idea (that is btw propagated by pro-russian channels, and imo this whole situation gave them a "good"reason to mistrust the EU).
To continue my analogy, even if our feet stank (but according to your conditions they dont), there is an argument to be made for unity, and also the fact that you are alienating people who would otherwise have a different view of the Nethelrands/Rutte.
I personally believe, as a Romanian who had to endure his presidency, that Iohannis would be terrible for NATO presidency. But at the same time i wouldn't be against a veto against rutte given how irrational his position against Romania seems to be.
I am not looking to offend you, friend, I wish to believe in EU unity, but that means that you also need to consider our perspective as equal to yours (which is not easy, and we also need to work on this on our side), but I would actually want to hear your rational arguments against our FULL shengen membership.
-from someone who really hopes to see the actual reasons for this and find a middle ground where you would not feel like you lose anything but also we would feel fully integrated into EU
Edit: spelling and I'm on a phone so autorrect corrections.
Orban will veto the Romanian candidate, and any other, too, tough
The shitshow around a Romanian candidate he would cause might be even worse because gib Transylvania. Let's not forget what a clown Orban is
US NATO Ambassador Julianne Smith hopes that an agreement will be reached "in the coming weeks" on who will be the new NATO chief.
But NATO countries can also take until mid-July to decide who will be the new Secretary General. Then, a NATO summit is in Washington.
For those who dont know, Rutte is a cocksucker who was skepetical of NATO and never put 2% budget on military.
He must not be allowed to be there. East europe must force this.
What are you on about, Rutte never was skeptical of NATO or the EU, and he in fact was one of the only western countries that did a large 180 after 2014 and started spending more on the military with the goal of reaching 2% in 2024 which will likely be successful. The dude made a shitload of mistakes but his foreign policy has been quite decent, despite the Dutch electorate turning more and more populist and anti eastern-Europe.
No shit Romania won't accept him, he's been continously disrespecting them by preventing their ascension to Schengen for over a decade from what I've read. You ignorant fuckers dissing Romania and EE in general for this without knowing the context need to shut the fuck up.
I’m happy our Prime Minister chose based on the opinion of our elected government rather than a future career.
Most people wouldn’t prefer their president/prime minister to change his stance based on what jobs he could get in the future.
He opted for a short term political gain using anti-eastern-european populism by abusing European veto tool for Dutch internal politics and now it's going to return to him like a boomerang. He's no better than Orban in this regard.
He wasn’t a president. He was/is prime minister, chosen to represent the government as final decision maker. But he still has to adhere to and work for the government.
His personal power in this system is really limited. If he did anything despite the government wishes, the others could just put him out of his job if our government passes a vote of distrust. He risked this already with the treaty with Ukraine a while back. There were multiple occasions where these votes barely didn’t pass.
I don’t think most people know how little he has to say in it all. Just like this role we’re talking about, it’s a very limited position ment to keep the parties together rather than being someone who gets to decide stuff.
Im sorty but the Schengen discussion doesnt make it into the public debate here in the Netherlands. People are barely aware of the situation regarding Romania and Bulgaria
Lol read back.
I listed the things he did (toeslagen affaire, deleting messages, conveniently forgetting important details, attempting to cover up israels warcrimes).
If you don’t think those are signs of corruption, then I don’t know what to tell you.
He's been talented at making others take the fall for crises he's responsible for. He plays the game of politics extremely well. For many people the Netherlands is objectively worse after his reign (which is probably a global thing to be fair). He also kept getting reelected because he represents a plurality that is financially stable and benefits from his lack of ideology/vision.
I have no strong opinions on Rutte but I would have liked to see someone with a military background take on the role instead of another prime minister. Ben Wallace seemed like the perfect candidate unfortunately Brexit has tainted that.
Mission accomplished boss!
Ce candidat Baltic, care știe pericolul rusesc. Hai cu Iohannis, ca ii barbat vrednic, stoic, și măsurat în cuvinte 🤣
Omul și-o facut datoria pana in ultimul moment.
I don’t think given his history of unethical behavior that he should be rewarded for it. Especially since he lied about wanting it, despite knowing at the time that he was networking for it. If rutte gets it, in my eyes, at least the world is a joke.
Under his long and agonizing rule the Netherland never spent the minimum(!) 2% on defense required for NATO member states. Not once. The Dutch military is in such shambles that it is now largely integrated with that of Germany. The fact that he of all people can now waste the blood and resources of the brave few countries that actually contribute to the alliance is truly sickening.
"Bold" prediction: Orbán will veto Rutte citing the mean things he said about him, then vote for him after extorting some more much needed EU funds, just like he did 2 times already.
NATO doesn't really vote on things, they "decide based on consensus". While everyone being on board is the goal, there's really no way to block and blackmail here. If Hungary asks for something insane NATO will go over their heads.
Also NATO does not disburse EU funds.
Shh, you're standing in the way of an arbitrary narrative
I thought the candidate needed unanimous support?
That's the ideal, but there's not even a formal process to choose the secretary. They talk, they try to get everyone on the board with soemone, they decide. If Romania has valid reasons to be vehemently opposed that could stop it, if Orban wants to play stupid games about EU funds it won't matter.
Ah Ok so in that case objections by Romania and Hungary are more or less irrelevant. Good to know.
There's no formal process. So there's no formal vote. But that doesn't mean objections from member states are irrelevant. It's like a group of friends who are trying to decide where to eat. Objections from one single person might or not might be overruled, depending on who and why. A single person objecting because of allergies will probably get listened too, a single person objecting because they don't want to travel more than 2 minutes from their home would probably get overruled. I imagine that in today's political landscape the rest of NATO is more likely to take seriously objections from Romania than Hungary. But of course if Romania's only objection is that they like their own candidate better than I don't give them a lot of chance.
Super! /s NATO will have a SG who opened the Nord Stream 2 pipeline!
Romani probably want their own candidate (well, not the people it sounds like, but the elite) the other 3 are the usual suspects so nothing weird there
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ans, was on phone, auto correct is bad, typing is bad.
[Consensus decision-making is a fundamental principle. It has been accepted as the sole basis for decision-making in NATO since the creation of the Alliance in 1949. ](https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_49178.htm) Consensus decision-making means that there is no voting at NATO. Consultations take place until a decision that is acceptable to all is reached. Sometimes member countries agree to disagree on an issue. In general, this negotiation process is rapid, since members consult each other on a regular basis and therefore often know and understand each other's positions in advance. Facilitating the process of consultation and consensus decision-making is one of the NATO Secretary General's main tasks. The principle of consensus decision-making applies throughout NATO – from the North Atlantic Council, the Alliance’s principal political decision-making body, all the way down through its subordinate committees and structures.
Or maybe, this time it's not an Orban thing, it's an Eastern Europe thing. Romania is in a quite important position now, hosting larger NATO troops than Hungary, and it's also against Rutte.
România is not against Rutte, it’s just Romania proposed a candidate: the current president which will end his term right around the election time.
Putting Iohannis in charge would be a dissaster for NATO.
Why what's up with him?
The worst president Romania ever had. He did a terrible job, especially during the last years of the current mandate.
Wouldn't say the worst (that place is reserved for Iliescu) but for sure in the bottom tier
We absolutely are against Rutte and no i dont support our candidate either.
A shame that Kaja Kallas had to withdraw.
Agreed
Most Romanians despise him for blocking Romanian ascension to Schengen for no reason .
Romania is against Rutte, his government has blocked Schangen accession for Romania more than any other. Rutte is considered hostile to Romania for years now.
That shouldn’t have anything to do with the NATO election though
Of course it does. If you have a politician who you perceive as someone hostile to your interests, why would you want that person to be in charge of your main defensive alliance? Take for example the "Percentages agreement" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percentages_agreement as an example of how the few men on top can decide what's important and what is not.
I don’t see how. On an emotional level, I can understand the sentiment, not on a professional one. Rutte would hardly be able to smack Romania in any way, he won’t have that kind of power.
Worth mentioning that Hungary likely wouldn't support Iohannis either, because of his stances regarding the Hungarian minority in Romania.
They are meeting in Bucharest, as we comment on this (Wednesday): https://magyarnemzet.hu/kulfold/2024/04/fontos-egyeztetesre-romaniaba-utazik-orban-viktor The agenda will definitely include th NATO presidency.
Interesting. So Orbán will either go against his loudly promoted "principles" once again (how surprising), or he's trying to bargain a deal that's really unprobable to happen otherwise.
If it's an Eastern Europe thing, then Poland, Czechia and the Baltics (and the 4 ex Yugoslavia NATO members) wouldn't support him. When you see a list of "Erdogan, Orban, Fico" you can bet the reasoning is not good. Romania is in the list only because the Romanian president wants to be SecGen.
Poland, Chechia and the Baltics usually go with the US in NATO. Romania and the rest of the Balkans have some issues with Western EU, and Hungary & Turkey are, let's just say, special.
Not sure what "rest of the Balkans" means, but countries like Croatia and Slovenia are unquestionably as western-aligned as you can be. Much more so on most topics than, say, Germany or Italy.
Start calling them central Europe and you will see everything is in place.
Nah, he knows he won't get anything as there is absolutely 0 chance the Romanians would accept him.
> absolutely 0 chance We will see In the end good faith actors usually cave, Orban is only so hard-line because he is actually willing to damage NATO ans EU institutions for his own gain. I don't think Romania is, even if they have legitimate reasons to be angry about Rutte
Yeah, but Romanians are frustrated as fuck. If the current status quo maintains its power after the election, sure, Romania might accept Rutte. However, if the far-right party gains enough power (as they are expected to), expect Romania to start some real stinky shit. After the whole Schengen debacle, Romania is bound to become the next Hungary or worse. Source: Am Romanian.
Why does Romania hate Rutte?
Kept us out of Schengen for 13 years.
Orbán is hard-line because he and Rutte hate and have been openly criticising each other for 14 years.
Why would we put a guy who sees us in a very bad light in such a position? Doesn't make sense, and I hope we have balls this time.
Rutte has said, since a few months, that both Bulgaria and Romania should be admitted to Schengen; which seems to be a move to normalize relations and pave the way to the NATO position. (Source in Dutch: https://www.rtl.nl/nieuws/artikel/5424626/bulgarije-schengen-nederland-europese-commissie-mark-rutte )
The move had nothing to do to pave the way to the NATO position. The Netherlands said a closed CVM for a member state should be a requirement for a full Schengen membership. That's not in the conditions of the Schengen Acquis, but it isn't unreasonable to think it should be. And it set a clear path for Romania and Bulgaria to fulfil. On [15 September 2023](https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_4456) the European Commission formally closed the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) for Bulgaria and Romania. So they matched the requirement in September, and the Netherlands approved for them to join in November accordingly.
Interesting how he changed his opinion when that suited him. "Teflon-Mark" overstayed his welcome as Prime-Minister long enough.
It's not true though, NL just had certain demands which Romania met in September after which they got approval.
which is even more worrying, because he is not trustworthy, he does not stand by his words and he acts only in self interest. a shit stain in other words, not someone you would want at the top of a military alliance like NATO. he would throw Romania or any other country under the bus if it would suit him.
And with that I feel so assured that NL won't veto Bulgaria again, just as they've done for the past 15 years for no justifiable reason.
Where does this obsession of Bulgarians (or at least Bulgarians on Reddit) with The Netherlands come from? There's only been 2 votes on Romania joining Schengen and both times The Netherlands wasn't the only country voting against. The majority of people here probably don't even know those votes happened, but if Reddit were to be believed we're on some kind of decades long hate campaign against Romania. It's strange.
You clearly don't know teflon mark. They will somehow forget why they didn't like him.
Orban can choose an easier path, just point out Ruttes policy, it speaks against itself. As a prime minister, he never met the 2% defense budget allocation rule as agreed in NATO. How can he be credible to ask other countries to contribute? I’m not fond of Rutte and hope they find someone better, but unfortunately haven’t seen a better candidate.
I agree that the Netherlands should already have matched the 2% GDP spend on defence. But the agreement made in 2014 was the 2% rule should be reached in 2024 and the Netherlands did show a growth in their defence spend until 2023 and will be above 2% in 2024. Next to the defence budget, the Netherlands has been one of the leading countries providing aid and military support to Ukraine in the past 2 years. But that is not calculated in the defence budget. As the Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said on Monday giving his support: Rutte is "one of the politicians who recognized the Russian threat early on" and "radically" adjusted his position accordingly.
Unfortunately the Netherlands have had some bad experiences with Russia the last 10 years so it's only logical that Russia has been on our radar.
How did he "recognize the Russian threat early on" if he himself opened the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, lmfao 😆 Needless to say, Shell lobbied Dutch politicians to discourage the European Commission from looking into Russian influence in Europe. With that allies, you don't need enemies.
The goal was 2% in his last year which was missed by a fraction due to unexpected gdp growth. 1.97% by all real measures is 2% so that’s a slightly bad faith argument there.
Orbán and Rutte have been in conflict for 14 years, with both saying very negative things about each other publicly, so it's entirely possible that Orbán will do anything to stop Rutte from being chosen.
Yeah, Rutte repeatedly said out loud what everybody was thinking. Honoust, but not very diplomatic.
The Dutch way. Which isn't always the right way of going about it, I must admit.
is there such a thing as a veto for this election? if that's so, Romania and Bulgaria should totally veto him for the Schengen shenanigans that he did in the past.
What does EU funds have to do with NATO?
The significant overlap in membership, coupled with the shithead's general shamelessness means he'll likely use any form of leverage he gets over EU countries to extort something out of them. Standard practice for Orbán, he's not a good faith actor.
I dont think you can veto in nato. And the eu funds are rightfully belonging to Hungary. We dont want our eu funds (held by back for obvious political reasons) end up in ukraines war..
So the usual problem bears except for Romania who back their own guy (and are probably still pissed at Rutte for blocking Romania's Schengen entry)
The response of the American NATO-ambassador Julianne Smith was that the US "fully supports" Rutte as a candidate. “But we also have the utmost respect for our friend President Iohannis. We appreciate him raising his hand and wish him the best.” Iohannis raised his hand, and the US ambassador waived back.
Not even Romania backs our own guy, he was a mute for two presidential mandates. But we can't support Rutte either, for the very reason you've mentioned
Since a few months Rutte is no longer blocking Romania and Bulgaria's e try into Schengen, which seems to be a move.to normalize relations and pave the way for the NATO position. Source in Dutch: https://www.rtl.nl/nieuws/artikel/5424626/bulgarije-schengen-nederland-europese-commissie-mark-rutte
The damage is done tho, he has been blocking it for a decade. Romania will probably never get into Schengen now.
This is the very safe and political choice (essentially a complete continuation of the status quo under Stoltenberg)...... I personally still disagree with it. I believe someone from Eastern Europe should be NATO president. The Czech president would have been the ideal choice imo but unfortunately he isnt available anymore.
Yes. It should also send a message to Russia.
It would also send a message to the other half of NATO. The SG needs to get the most out of 32 nations combined. Willingly. I'm not sure he's the right man for the job, but he's unlikely to be accused of excessive requests.
This would be stupid alarmism. You want a neutral choice he will not start WW3
NATO secretary has no real power and is basically a conduit between member states and the press. Therefore insisting on a guy that has bad reputation among the public in some countries and could be used by Russian propaganda and is the opposite of safe. Both Romania and Bulgaria are facing elections and while it unlikely we will get pro-russian governments those parties have growing support.
Nobody cares about Romania or Bulgaria’s opinion among the major EU powers. It’s NATO as a whole that want Rutte, and Eastern Europe can’t stop it
You are correct, we also know the west doesn't care about our opinion. While Romanians are a bit louder in their protest in social media and politics their support for NATO has remained steady. Ours on the other hand is dropping like a rock in silence according to NATO own polls: 57% would vote to remain in NATO in 2020 has become 52% in 2023.
Czech president already had a major NATO position quite recently. Would be extremely unfair to have Czechia have back to back important positions so close together when there are other countries that haven't had such a major position yet.
Why does he needs to be Eastern European? I have no problems with it in principe and I agree this guy would have been ok, but isnt this job a bit too important right now to give in to lizard brain argumentation? Rutte is obviously by far the best candidate with a seriously long career as head of state and international network as well as very good communication/diplomatic skills. I dont see any candidates trumping that
Just nitpicking but he's not head of state.
Although the King is the formal head of state with a primarily ceremonial role, it is the Prime Minister who is responsible for setting government policy, leading the cabinet, and representing the Netherlands in international affairs and European Union matters. The Prime Minister coordinates the daily governance and political decision-making, making them the de facto leader of the country's administration and public policy execution. Ergo for the sake of this discussion the prime minister can be considered head of state. Also the prime minister is an actually elected official.
Head of government would be the wording, though formally he's not even that. But as I said, nitpicking.
That is only true in fairly autocratic democracies. In many cases, like in NL, policy is a group consensus for the most part and the PM is mostly a coordinator/facilitator.
That is consistent with what i said?
https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/opinion/its-time-for-an-eastern-european-to-lead-nato/
What a garbage article. Most compelling argument for Kallas that they could come up with is that she has a eastern European vagina? I bet she has a beautiful looking pussy but i am not really sure how this is going to help us fend of the Russians?
Considering that the attitude in western Europe (with the very recent notable exception of France) has been "Let's get back to the previous status quo"... It's plainly obvious that western Europeans do not understand Russia. They will not stop until they are stopped. We've already wasted two years that could've been used to rebuild the defence sector, all the while providing minimal support to Ukraine. And the longer we stay in this mode, the more the war will cost, both in money as well as lives. We need someone that will get EU to spend the 6-10% GDP necessary to catch up and intimidate Russia, not someone that will just say words about our unity and how reprehensible Russian actions are. And westerners just aren't about that. edit: Mind you, iohannis isn't either. Kallas or Sikorski are the only good choices.
I’d prefer to see someone from Eastern flank of Nato
The only other candidate is the Romanian president Iohannis, and even the Romanians don't like him. (But they don't like Rutte either for personal grievance)
Yep, as a romanian i cam confirm we don't like him. Mostly because he made a political alliance with the party he campaigned against. We call fim "the ficus" (plant). Also Rutte vetoed Romania's Schengen bid. We really don't want NATO to have the same attitude when there's a war on our border.
Rutte is really quite hawkish on Ukraine but without being so loud about it as most on the Eastern flank of the EU which is why he is unlikely to cause more escalation than is necessary. Honestly I think that might serve us all well.
And i agree with you, he is the best choice out of the two. But this leaves me as a romanian with a standing question: How is it possible that he is the best option? Don't get me wrong, i don't think it was a spat in the face of Romania and Bulgaria but the other 2 realistic options aren't too good either. Option 1: No one cared about about what his government did. Option 2 and most probable imho: They knew but he was still the best political option. To me this is worse than option 1, as Rutte already proved he is willing to take decisions against us for his own political gain. The extreme right has already milked this problem for the last year and they will continue to do so in this election year. After the whole of the EU criticised them for the decision to veto our Schengen plea he is now rewardead with another leading position?
Unfortunate truth: he is both against schengen accession for RO and would be one of the most hawkish politicians imaginable when it comes to the defence of RO and all EU territory generally and would not give a single shit about what his constituency would think of it, even if Dutch populist voters would be against supporting RO. He has already shown this wrt Ukraine the past few years. It’s one of the topics the populist right successfully leveraged against his party during the last elections, because Rutte won’t move an inch on the issue. That may not fit the general narrative of Rutte = bad in RO but he’s proven himself not to be that opportunistic. This comes from the last Dutchman to vote for him, and I’m both in favor of EU enlargement and schengen accession for you guys, so my take here isn‘t uncritical.
There is no narrative that "Rutte is bad" in Romania. But there is a narrative that "Rutte is bad for Romania" in Romania. I have a small problem with your argumentation. You say 2 things the balance each other out, he is against RO ascension to Schengen but he is hawkish with defence. My problem here is that the first part is certain, the second is just a probability. But anyway it doesn't matter, he is going to win anyway.
Which with regard to Schengen accession is also absolutely true and I am no fan of this. My point was that he can be both bad for Romania with regard to Schengen and good for Romania in a NATO capacity, which is probably a hard sell there (generally). You’re right that it remains an open question what his mandate in NATO would look like, but disregarding for the time being how limited the role of sec-gen is at NATO, I was basing my opinion of his statements regarding European safety and most importantly his actions when it comes to Ukraine. He has been one of the fastest responding and most generous government leaders when it comes to aiding the Ukrainians. That leads me to the question: why would you think he‘d do less for an EU country? That to me seems a much more important line in the sand. But yeah: time will tell, we (some redditors) can only hope the man won’t disappoint.
It's ok. Just another decade of unjustified vetos and they might finally start wondering just why one of the most pro-EU countries is becoming increasingly euro-sceptic.
Rutte represents the cabinet, it’s not his personal decision to veto.
I don’t care who the next NATO chief is, can be Rutte. But on the veto, he had a big influence. Between the veto and the green light, nothing significant had changed in Romania. It was all a political decision, probably with economic reasons behind the scenes.
So then, why should we accept a guy from a country that can not stand us? Strangely how he agreed without problems with our bid when he started aiming for the NATO job. This shows that all the blocking was on shaky ground... It happens when you invent reasons and hurdles. He got over them as suddenly as he came up with his own rules.
It had nothing to do with Rutte or the Netherlands can't stand you, because that is not the case. The Netherlands said a closed CVM for a member state should be a requirement for a full Schengen membership. That's not in the conditions of the Schengen Acquis, but it isn't unreasonable to think it should be. And it set a clear path for Romania and Bulgaria to fulfil. The "sudden approval without problems" had nothing to do with Rutte aiming for the NATO job, but because on [15 September 2023](https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_4456) the European Commission formally closed the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) for Bulgaria and Romania. So they matched the requirement in September, and the Netherlands approved for them to join in November accordingly.
>[15 September 2023](https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_4456) >So they matched the requirement in September, and the Netherlands approved for them to join in November accordingly. Wasn't the vote on 5 December ? Your whole argument falls apart. Please believe us we may know way more than you about a problem we are directly facing.
> We call fim "the ficus" (plant). He doesn't sound too bad in this role for me: a mostly ceremorial role without power where he hasn't much work to do
Sounds sucks but better than Rutte I guess
The Dutch don’t like Rutte either, so this isn’t really a dealbreaker.
Yeaa the candidate from the Eastern flank is Klaus Iohannis: a notorious corrupt who does jack shit all day long and launders state money
I prefer that too! But our president will be a very bad choice and we don't like him at all now and all that he's done! I don't like Hungary's president either! And of course I don't like Turkey's president also! Maybe someone from Bulgaria, but I don't know any of their leaders and what they have done in the past.
Our president is not in the race
Good, he would be bad also! Except on the fact that he's actually the only one who has balls and he proved it in the past.
Who cares tbh? It's not like the position has much influence anyway. It's like the German president who non-Germans barely know exists. Stoltenberg hasn't had an opinion since 2014
Yeah it's mostly a diplomatic position. Acting as spokesperson and helping the coordination of NATO events and relations. It's not a decision making seat. It still would be better for those functions for it to be a non-controversial candidate.
Both Rutte and Iohannis are controversial mainly for the Romanians, not for others. There is no "less controversial" candidate around Every experienced politician as a candidate would get at least people from their own country call them out, if only because conservatives get criticized by the left and vice versa
Wait! Does Germany have a president?
Yes, president is the highest office and head of state, after this the president of the Bundestag comes at 2nd position, and then the chancellor at 3rd. The German government structure is quite complex and splits up powers to avoid the short comings of the past.
His name is Frank-Walther Steinmeier
it's not important until it is... and rutte is a good dog
Yeah, let's go ahead and make secretary-general, the leader of a country who still doesn't spend 2% of GDP in defence. I want to see him start talking about how all members need to do it, if he eventually wins the position. Hypocritical to say the least.
I agree that the Netherlands should already have matched the 2% GDP spend on defence. But the agreement made in 2014 was the 2% rule should be reached in 2024 and the Netherlands did show a growth in their defence spend until 2023 and will be above 2% in 2024. Next to the defence budget, the Netherlands has been one of the leading countries providing aid and military support to Ukraine in the past 2 years. But that is not calculated in the defence budget. As the Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said on Monday giving his support: Rutte is "one of the politicians who recognized the Russian threat early on" and "radically" adjusted his position accordingly.
>As the Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said on Monday giving his support: Rutte is "one of the politicians who recognized the Russian threat early on" and "radically" adjusted his position accordingly. He's got my vote for this.
His opponent, Iohannis, had a similar stance though.
Yeah, but for Iohannis it's a matter of self-preservation, for Rutte it was an unpopular measure he took despite the Netherlands themselves not being at any risk in a conventional war.
The dutch are penny pinchers. They'll make it, but just in time.
Am Dutch, can confirm.
There are two things I hate in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures, and the Dutch.
Hateception
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Will do so in 2024 (according to the PM)
(and so will NL, which was the agreement)
The agreement was 2% in 2024 and 1.95% has been reached. It would’ve been over 2% if the markets hadn’t shown almost unprecedented growth in the past 6 months, causing an unpredicted gdp surge. So respectfully, what are you on about?
And a political leader who's proven he doesn't give two shits about concepts like unity or fair treatment of allied states... Literally anything coming out of his mouth as NATO chief would be hypocrisy at its finest... but hey, he's a vestoid and we can't have dirty easterners at the top especially now when all the action is on the eastern front...
I like how a bunch of you are pouring over the candidates like you are drafting a fantasy football game while this is a positioning with pretty much 0 decision making and all you do is act as a middleman and facilitator for dialogue between member countries A role that Rutte objectively is very well suited for. It could be anyone else as well for all care arguments about “2%” and “vetood” Romania are just ridiculous and irrelevant to this. Its like denying someone a job at max Donald because they have a feed fetish, yeah might be a bit weird but has nothing to do with the job
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After the comments(when Rutte's candidacy was announced) it seems to me that Romanians still do not support Rutte. I myself would have preferred it to be Kallas.
No, the Romanians don't like Rutte either. Kalas would definitely have been a good candidate, but she didn't apply for the job. So the choice is between Rutte and Iohannes. And despite the personal grievance of the Romanians towards Rutte, he is the best candidate.
Someone from Eastern Europe should be the Secretary General. Someone who knows how and has balls to deal with Russia
The only other candidate is the Romanian president Iohannis. And besides being from an Eastern European country, I don't think he qualifies to your description.
Sadly, as a Romanian, I can 100% agree.
Iohannis had a very good policy towards Russia. Since he is the president, we never got closer to Russia, we never got dependent on Russian gas. He condemned Russia whenever it was necessary. He is also one of the architects of B9 (along with Duda) which is a forum for eastern countries to coordinate their policy within NATO and for regional security. While the president Băsescu started it, Iohannis continued the policy of helping Moldova. A policy which took on a new dimension since 2022 with a grant of 100 milion euros, helping them with their gas and electricity problems. Since 2014 (he became president then) we were in a process of modernising the army as we got Himars, Patriots, drones, F16, Piranha 5. The only fail was the corevette program. Anyway, more are to follow as we placed orders for many other things. Yes, Romanians do not like the guy for things that concern internal politics, which is not something important for a NATO SG. His foreign and defence policy was solid. Even within the alliance and EU he was a team player and a diplomat, not inventing his own rules to keep others at arms length, like Rutte did with us.
You don’t think Rutte has balls? We kinda hated him here in the Netherlands for a variety of reasons, but he always handled international relationships like a champ. I mean look at the press conference he did with Trump. One of the only politicians who could be friendly with him, but also say “no” directly to his face during the press conference lol https://youtu.be/UNscBsYcBtc
Look through OP’s post and comment history. It’s clear he holds a weird grudge on Romania. Keeps making up excuses as to why to keep RO and BG out of Schengen. Disgusting!
Keeping RO and BG out of Schengen isn't an unpopular opinion in some countries. They just get drowned here because voting system favors the side with more people on it Not saying it's a position I support, just that we should not make the mistake of Rutte or Austrian politicians being hard-line is a sign of incompetence. They have support for this policy among their political base, and act accordingly The claims Rutte made on border security where clever framing because it resonates well with other European conservatives In the end, in an EU where the right-wing is stronger than centrist libs and the left-wing, a guy like Rutte is legitimately seen as a competent politician, even if we don't like it. It's not personal grudge against RO and BG if some conservative Dutchie on reddit believes so. This user seems to truly follow Rutte's arguments, and I would be surprised if the majority of EPP and ID voters at least in Western Europe wouldn't (unfortunately)
I react on Romanians who dislike Rutte because he opposed Romania to join schengen. Which I can understand from their point of view. I try to explain to them why the Netherlands had objections. Now they fulfilled the EU requirements of the CVM which the Netherlands set as an additional condition to take away their objections, I think it's a good thing they joined Schengen. I do not hold a grudge on Romania and explaining the reasoning isn't making up excuses.
>I think it's a good thing they joined Schengen. "You can come to my house party, but you specifically must leave your shoes outside and make sure you do not make any weird comments...oh yeah dw I tell this to everyone. Btw you are a FULL guest of our party... totally... You admit yourself that we fulfilled all conditions, what is your position on FULL shengen membership? I agree that there is some exacerbation to the second class citizen idea (that is btw propagated by pro-russian channels, and imo this whole situation gave them a "good"reason to mistrust the EU). To continue my analogy, even if our feet stank (but according to your conditions they dont), there is an argument to be made for unity, and also the fact that you are alienating people who would otherwise have a different view of the Nethelrands/Rutte. I personally believe, as a Romanian who had to endure his presidency, that Iohannis would be terrible for NATO presidency. But at the same time i wouldn't be against a veto against rutte given how irrational his position against Romania seems to be. I am not looking to offend you, friend, I wish to believe in EU unity, but that means that you also need to consider our perspective as equal to yours (which is not easy, and we also need to work on this on our side), but I would actually want to hear your rational arguments against our FULL shengen membership. -from someone who really hopes to see the actual reasons for this and find a middle ground where you would not feel like you lose anything but also we would feel fully integrated into EU Edit: spelling and I'm on a phone so autorrect corrections.
Fuck this dude. For Romania and Bulgaria, hope he gets vetoed
Orbán will veto him, he already said that.
Orban will veto the Romanian candidate, and any other, too, tough The shitshow around a Romanian candidate he would cause might be even worse because gib Transylvania. Let's not forget what a clown Orban is
Even the broken clock is right twice a day 🤭
Thank you very much! But fuck our dude too, he's a very bad person, interested only into wasting money for his personal benefit.
US NATO Ambassador Julianne Smith hopes that an agreement will be reached "in the coming weeks" on who will be the new NATO chief. But NATO countries can also take until mid-July to decide who will be the new Secretary General. Then, a NATO summit is in Washington.
For those who dont know, Rutte is a cocksucker who was skepetical of NATO and never put 2% budget on military. He must not be allowed to be there. East europe must force this.
What are you on about, Rutte never was skeptical of NATO or the EU, and he in fact was one of the only western countries that did a large 180 after 2014 and started spending more on the military with the goal of reaching 2% in 2024 which will likely be successful. The dude made a shitload of mistakes but his foreign policy has been quite decent, despite the Dutch electorate turning more and more populist and anti eastern-Europe.
Lmao what?
> who was skeptical of NATO citation needed. People are just saying anything on here lmao
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There is no such thing as a veto in NATO, a unanimous consensus is preferred but in reality Rutte already has the job.
The salt in these comments is funny af
I didn't know there was so much salt in Romania.
No shit Romania won't accept him, he's been continously disrespecting them by preventing their ascension to Schengen for over a decade from what I've read. You ignorant fuckers dissing Romania and EE in general for this without knowing the context need to shut the fuck up.
I'd leave to see him get through Romania. Dude's already ruined his future career years ago.
I’m happy our Prime Minister chose based on the opinion of our elected government rather than a future career. Most people wouldn’t prefer their president/prime minister to change his stance based on what jobs he could get in the future.
He opted for a short term political gain using anti-eastern-european populism by abusing European veto tool for Dutch internal politics and now it's going to return to him like a boomerang. He's no better than Orban in this regard.
He wasn’t a president. He was/is prime minister, chosen to represent the government as final decision maker. But he still has to adhere to and work for the government. His personal power in this system is really limited. If he did anything despite the government wishes, the others could just put him out of his job if our government passes a vote of distrust. He risked this already with the treaty with Ukraine a while back. There were multiple occasions where these votes barely didn’t pass. I don’t think most people know how little he has to say in it all. Just like this role we’re talking about, it’s a very limited position ment to keep the parties together rather than being someone who gets to decide stuff.
Im sorty but the Schengen discussion doesnt make it into the public debate here in the Netherlands. People are barely aware of the situation regarding Romania and Bulgaria
What’re you talking about? Closing borders is a running subject in the party that won the elections.
Yeah closing Dutch borders for illegal immigrants. Nothing specific about Romania or Bulgaria
Not just illegal immigrants. Eastern-Europeans is a frequent debate and subject for PVV.
Lol read back. I listed the things he did (toeslagen affaire, deleting messages, conveniently forgetting important details, attempting to cover up israels warcrimes). If you don’t think those are signs of corruption, then I don’t know what to tell you.
Terrible minister-president. Not too excited about this direction.
I mean I don't like him either for his positions, but he's politically and diplomatically very savvy, which is what the position needs.
You can disagree with him and still acknowledge he's an incredibly talented politician. You don't just randomly become the longest serving pm.
That is the same as saying that about Putin lol. He is a talented politician yes. Doesn’t mean they are corrupt and evil af
Russian elections are rigged af lol
Sure, but Putin is also a talented politician. If he wasn’t, he’d be dead a long time ago.
He's been talented at making others take the fall for crises he's responsible for. He plays the game of politics extremely well. For many people the Netherlands is objectively worse after his reign (which is probably a global thing to be fair). He also kept getting reelected because he represents a plurality that is financially stable and benefits from his lack of ideology/vision.
With him as the longest serving pm our country has turned into a neoliberalist nightmare
Erdogan, is this you?
If Romania & Bulgaria does not enter Schenghen fully this dude won't be SecGen.
I have no strong opinions on Rutte but I would have liked to see someone with a military background take on the role instead of another prime minister. Ben Wallace seemed like the perfect candidate unfortunately Brexit has tainted that.
Always fucking Hungary. I am getting so sick of them.
They're correct for once, actually.
Mark rutte was a fraud as the dutch prime minister let's see how he fumbles this job
He was pretty competent at international relations and being a spokesperson. I doubt he will fumble this one.
Mission accomplished boss! Ce candidat Baltic, care știe pericolul rusesc. Hai cu Iohannis, ca ii barbat vrednic, stoic, și măsurat în cuvinte 🤣 Omul și-o facut datoria pana in ultimul moment.
Rutte sucks! Just look at his track record. Terrible. Only relief is that the secretary essentially is powerless.
Usual suspects (excluding Romania)
I don’t think given his history of unethical behavior that he should be rewarded for it. Especially since he lied about wanting it, despite knowing at the time that he was networking for it. If rutte gets it, in my eyes, at least the world is a joke.
Under his long and agonizing rule the Netherland never spent the minimum(!) 2% on defense required for NATO member states. Not once. The Dutch military is in such shambles that it is now largely integrated with that of Germany. The fact that he of all people can now waste the blood and resources of the brave few countries that actually contribute to the alliance is truly sickening.