“The Hungarian government is trying to support the lesser of two evils”

We are glad that there is a candidate from Central Europe, and I will say it again, we think that now is the time to seriously discuss the question of how it can happen that NATO has never had a Central , and its general secretary from the Eastern European region

he said on April 3 Péter Szijjártó Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Brussels. He is applying for the position of Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Klaus Iohannisalso the President of the Republic of Romania in office since 2014.

The beauty of the matter is that Iohannis’s surprise application to the post of NATO leader and his assurance of the support of the Hungarian and Romanian governments came after more than 20 countries, led by the USA, Great Britain, Germany and France, had already Mark Rutte cast his vote for the current Dutch executive prime minister.

Klaus Iohannis

Tamás Csiki Vargaa senior researcher at the John Lukacs Institute of the National University of Public Service (NKE), believes that it is not that the Hungarian government wants to support Iohannis with all its heart, but that it wants to turn its back on Rutte.

The Hungarian government had disputes with Rutté going back years, especially due to their confrontations regarding the so-called “child protection law” and the linking of EU funds to rule of law conditions. In 2021, in connection with a law passed against pedophiles but attacked for its homophobia, the Dutch politician said, for example, that “Hungary must be forced to its knees” and, due to concerns about the rule of law, that Hungary “no longer has a place in the EU”. The Netherlands also has a different opinion regarding the Russian-Ukrainian war than the Orbán government, at the end of last year, for example, Rutte offered 18 F-16s to the attacked country.

According to Csiki Varga, “the relatively unexpected appearance of Iohannis came to the fore” of the Hungarian government. The NATO Secretary General is selected through informal diplomatic consultations between member states, and the decision is not confirmed until a consensus is reached on a candidate. The outgoing general secretary, Jens Stoltenberg his predecessor, who was elected in 2009 Anders Fogh Rasmussen was also difficult to elect by consensus, because the process was obstructed by the Turks for a long time (this was because he did not distance himself from the issue of Muhammad caricatures even in 2005, as Danish Prime Minister).

Rutte’s supporters fear that Hungary’s vote will be the most difficult for the Dutch acting prime minister to win.

According to the senior scientific associate of the John Lukacs Institute of the NKE, behind Rutte’s rejection are more personal contradictions, while for Iohannis it is a question of another round of “traditionally mixed Hungarian-Romanian relations”.

The support of Iohannis would not be clear from the point of view of the Hungarian government either, as the government has also clashed several times with the Romanian head of state. The Romanian anti-discrimination authority once punished the current head of state for anti-Hungarian hate speech, and Péter Szijjártó once said about Iohannis:

Unfortunately, the president of Romania is an extremely anti-Hungarian politician.

In addition to his East-Central European background, it is difficult to find anything in Iohannis’ oeuvre that would be attractive to the current Hungarian leadership, or that would differentiate him from Rutté:

• like his country, he is clearly pro-EU and NATO,
• takes Russian influence attempts seriously,
• with his participation, Romania remained the only neighboring state that did not introduce restrictions on grain imports from Ukraine,
• supports Ukraine’s EU accession process.

From this point of view, the Hungarian government is trying to support the lesser of two evils

– Tamás Csiki Varga told our newspaper, according to whom Iohannis does not have a serious chance unless he can convince the great powers. At the same time, he noted that the Romanian president still has a strength, namely that no one has expressed a sharp rejection against him. On the other hand, the Turkish, Slovak, Hungarian and Romanian sides also expressed criticism of Rutté.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan conditioned the voting of the Dutch. For example, the Turks may want Rutte to be unbiased towards EU members, especially Greece and Cyprus, who have troubled relations with them, and for there to be no defense export restrictions between NATO members.

The current official plan is for the member states to accept the person of the new Secretary General at the NATO summit in Washington in July, “this would be the cultured solution, since the alliance must demonstrate its political unity there”, and in this case they can continue a calm handover process down, while the current Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s mandate expires in the fall, explained Csiki Varga.

The Hungarian – as well as the Romanian, Slovak and Turkish – government may also aim to ask for something in exchange for Rutte’s acceptance, and for this purpose they may even torpedo the July target date. It is not known what the Hungarian requests might be, “just as it was not possible to know what exactly we wanted to achieve in connection with Sweden’s NATO accession,” Csiki Varga told our newspaper.

Any member state can drag out the plan as long as it wants, if it can live with its diplomatic weight

says Csiki Varga. The Romanians are very strong Atlanticists, they are not interested in making the case impossible, the Turks can impose serious conditions, but as in the Swedish case, when they got what they wanted, they accepted the accession.

In the past few days, Bloomberg has written about the Eastern countries wanting a greater say in NATO’s decision-making, they want key positions in exchange for Rutte’s support, in addition to the mentioned states, the Poles are also there, although they support the Dutch.

“It is unacceptable that none of the leading positions discussed this year should be filled by someone from Eastern Europe,” declared Iohannis back in February, before signing up for the post of Secretary General. Currently, out of more than a dozen posts, you can find Eastern Europeans in one position. Jens Stoltenberg, the immediate deputy of the current Secretary General, who is also Romanian: Mircea Geoana. Regarding the politician who previously led the Romanian Social Democratic Party and the upper house of the Romanian parliament, it is said that he would be returning home and would be Iohannis’ successor.