Campaigned hard in Turkey and Hungary / Received no public support / US backs Rutte / Irritation in several member states

In February, President Klaus Iohannis launched his candidacy for the post of NATO Secretary General, competing with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. So far, Iohannis has not received the support of any NATO member state, but he has declared that he maintains his candidacy and that he is conducting negotiations. Public information and diplomatic sources show a rather pessimistic picture for the head of state: irritation in many member states, but also lack of collaboration with other state institutions. In parallel, however, Klaus Iohannis will receive an award from a prestigious US think-tank precisely for his transatlantic policy. At this moment it is not clear if Iohannis has an agreement with the Biden Administration or a dialogue with the Trump team, or if his candidacy is just a political game on his own.

Klaus Iohannis is seen by major international publications as an outsider in the race for the headship of NATO, Mark Rutte being considered the favorite due to the support announced by the majority of member states, including the “heavyweights” USA, Great Britain, Canada, France and Germany. The only countries that have not announced their support for the Dutchman are Turkey, Hungary and Slovakia. AFP even wrote on Saturday that Rutte is the favorite, in a news related to the meeting in Ankara between Turkish President Erdogan and the Dutch Prime Minister.

Turkey is one of the key countries in the race for the NATO leadership, because Erdogan has not yet announced his support for any of the candidates. Because, President Iohannis is courting the Erdogan administration. On Friday, Iohannis met with Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz, who is on an official visit to Romania, and NATO was one of the topics on the agenda.

A week ago, Iohannis announced on Twitter that he also spoke by phone with President Recep Erdogan about NATO. An interesting detail: a press release from the Turkish presidency shows that the telephone conversation took place at Romania’s request. The information had not appeared in the official communication of Cotroceni.

Mark Rutte also talked with Erdogan yesterday, but on a different level: the Dutch prime minister was received in Ankara, and Erdogan held a press conference with him.

In parallel with the public talks with Turkey, President Iohannis had at least two meetings with high officials from Hungary, country whose prime minister has announced that he rejects Mark Rutte. Thus, Viktor Orban was present in Bucharest in April for a discussion with Klaus Iohannis, Charles Michel and the prime ministers of Belgium and Croatia. After the five-way meeting, President Iohannis had a separate meeting with Viktor Orban. Also in April, the head of state met in Vilnius with the president of Hungary, Tamas Sulyok, on the sidelines of the Three Seas Initiative Summit.

Despite these meetings and “very intense” negotiations – a term used by Iohannis himself, the head of state did not receive any public support. More, US officials have twice publicly announced their support for Mark Rutte. On April 2, the US ambassador to NATO, Julianne Smith, stated that “the US position is in support of Mark Rutte as Secretary General”. Similar situations with officials in Great Britain, France, Germany and Canada.

Multiple diplomatic sources told G4Media that some European capitals are “irritated” by the fact that Iohannis is delaying the process of selecting the new NATO Secretary General to replace Jens Stoltenberg. “The candidacy announcement was an unpleasant surprise, Iohannis did not consult with the European leaders before sending the official announcement”, several European diplomats told G4Media.

The reason for the irritation is projecting an image of weakness within NATO, of a lack of consensus, at the most critical moment of the North Atlantic Alliance after the end of the Cold War. While Russia constantly challenges NATO, the alliance has enormously delayed the reception of Finland and Sweden due to difficult negotiations with Hungary and Turkey, and now the process of appointing a new secretary general is also delayed by the appearance of Iohannis’s last-minute candidacy, they told G4Media quoted diplomats.

Similar information was published by the Financial Times (UK) and The Wall Street Journal (USA). In early April, the Financial Times wrote that Iohannis “is not seen as a real alternative” to Rutte by most member states, while The Wall Street Journal claimed that the timing chosen by Iohannis to announce his candidacy “irritated many diplomats of the Alliance”.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the US, through NATO ambassador Julianne Smith, had expressed hope in February that the selection of a new secretary general would take place “in the first quarter of the year”. The original deadline has passed, and now everyone is waiting for the situation to be resolved by the NATO summit in Washington in July. A delay beyond July would increase nervousness in member states, as Stoltenberg’s term expires in the fall and the US prepares for presidential elections.

Despite the public position of US officials who announced their support for Mark Rutte, there are voices in the diplomatic community that do not rule out a possible deal between Klaus Iohannis and the Biden Administration leading to a compromise solution. Other diplomats are talking about the possibility that Iohannis’ entry into the race will serve to block Mark Rutte and pave the way for a third candidate who will be unanimously accepted. A third working hypothesis in some diplomatic circles is that Iohannis would have a dialogue with Donald Trump’s team and would prevent, through his candidacy, the election of a new NATO Secretary General until a possible victory of the conservative candidate in the US presidential elections – so that Trump can get involved in the process. However, this last option is categorically rejected by other Western diplomats.

Moreover, President Iohannis will be present on May 8 in the USA; where he will receive an award for his contribution to the transatlantic relationship from the prestigious think-tank Atlantic Council. It is not clear whether the event has any relevance in the race for NATO leadership.

If Iohannis’s chances of becoming the first head of NATO from the East are difficult to quantify in the absence of a minimum of transparency from the president, who has not given an interview for almost 6 years, his candidacy has a definite impact on domestic politics: he is still perceived as a key player, one who has a chance of landing an international role. It is a unique case of a president who preserves his political power so well in the last months of his term. All of his predecessors had an end of term in which they quickly became politically irrelevant: Traian Băsescu in 2014, Ion Iliescu in 2004 and Emil Constantinescu in 2000.

PS: A possible quick failure of President Iohannis in the race for NATO will put him in an unfortunate position in September, when the presidential elections take place. From that moment until the end of his term in December, his power will tend to zero. That is why there have been discussions in the political class about a new move of the presidential elections to November-December, a hypothesis that Ioana Dogioiu also wrote about on Spotmedia. Such a change of mind by the PSD-PNL would only add to the ridicule that the coalition has already covered with the failures named Ramona Chiriac and Cătălin Cîrstoiu.