“It’s done”. Allied sources have confirmed on Thursday that the member countries of the Atlantic Alliance have reached an agreement to extend, for one more year, until September 2024, the mandate of its current Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg.
The decision will be formalized in the middle of next week by the ambassadors of the 31 NATO partners and ratified at the summit that will take place on July 11 and 12 in Vilnius. After unsuccessful months of a consensus candidate to succeed the Norwegian prime minister, who took office in 2014 and in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and has already agreed to remain in office for another year, the allies have come to the conclusion that that the best solution is to extend his mandate again. The high degree of satisfaction with the management of the Nordic politician has not been the only determining factor when it comes to asking him to stay a while longer.
Stoltenberg is the longest-serving Secretary General since the end of the Cold War.
“The allies do not want to elect someone out of desperation,” said sources from the military organization a few days ago regarding the failed attempts by the British Defense Secretary, Ben Wallace, to take office; Wallace was the only one who made his candidacy official and ruled himself out, but the names of the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, and her Dutch counterpart, Mark Rutte, have also been considered, and the interest of the Estonian Kaja Kallas was known. US President Joe Biden has already told Stoltenberg that there would probably be no consensus before the summit to find a successor for him.
The Secretary General has remained silent on the matter in recent weeks, he has only let it be known that he personally would not request one more extension, but at the meeting of foreign ministers held in Brussels in the middle of the month it became clear that it was the only plausible option. The holding, in April 2024, of a summit in Washington on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty has also been used as an argument for Stoltenberg to continue for another year and to participate in the event, as leader of the organization that has held the position the longest since the end of the cold war. What was missing was not only for him to give his agreement, but also to verify that “all the allies” agreed and “no one questioned the decision,” Alliance sources explain. That is what has been verified today, although it will not become official until Tuesday or Wednesday of next week.
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