Political disagreements, vetoes and personal reluctance make it increasingly likely that the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, will be asked to remain in post for another year at the Nato summit in Lithuania next month.
It would be the third time the former Norwegian prime minister has been asked to extend his almost 10-year term.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, along with leaders of other EU member states, reportedly remains reluctant to accept another non-EU candidate as secretary general, a stance that in effect rules out the British defence secretary, Ben Wallace, whose name has been mooted.
Stoltenberg, 64, could stay on in the role if consensus about an EU candidate, preferably a woman, is not reached before the summit. The US also has doubts about Wallace, with some in the military resenting the way he has forced the pace over Ukraine.
Wallace has a claim to the post as defence secretary of one of the foremost European defence powers and has said he wants the job. The UK Ministry of Defence’s relations with the Ukrainian armed forces, including at intelligence levels, are probably closer than any other country in Europe.
However, it is argued that the new secretary general will have to navigate how to build a stronger EU defence arm – something the French advocate – without duplicating or undermining the role of Nato.
Wallace has never been an opponent of closer EU defence integration and indeed submitted a paper last year setting out how this could be advanced alongside a modernisation of Nato’s own defence strategy, but he has expressed fears about EU defence cooperation, including arms procurement, if it excludes non-EU member states that are in Nato, such as the UK.
Nato secretaries-general are appointed by consensus of the organisation’s 31 members, and it would take a firm decision by Joe Biden to back Wallace for the defence secretary to become leader in the face of the EU’s reluctance.
Once seen as the favourite, the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, this month insisted she was not seeking Nato’s top job. That came despite meeting the US president and holding a separate meeting with the director of the CIA, William Burns. In what looked like a job interview, she spent almost two hours with Biden, and had recently boosted Danish defence spending to bring it closer to the 2% of GDP spending advocated by Nato.
However, pursued daily by the Danish media on the issue, Frederiksen said an extension for Stoltenberg would be an excellent solution, if he could be persuaded.
There is also strong support among Nato’s more eastern countries for the forceful Estonian prime minister, Kaja Kallas, and she has not ruled herself out even though she has only recently been re-elected.
Kallas has been a clear-eyed and passionate critic of Russia, often wielding an outsized influence for a country with only 1.3 million inhabitants. She has taken the lead on ideas for greater EU arms production that Brussels has subsequently adopted, and is advocating that the bloc does not simply freeze Russian assets that are subject to sanctions, but seize them. However, her vanguard role might not make her the ideal candidate for a job that requires putting a premium on unity within the alliance, smoothing over differences and publicly denying any discord.
Among Denmark’s Social Democrats, the party Frederiksen leads, there is still some scepticism about her denials of interest in the job. Per Stefansen, the Social Democrat district chair in Ringkøbing, Central Jutland region, insisted Frederiksen was a candidate for the post, which was previously held by a Danish prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
“I don’t know if she is on her way. But there’s a bit of Anders Fogh in the way she explains herself: deny, deny, deny, until it turns out to be the case,” Stefansen said, adding: “Yes, I think she is a candidate.”
The leader of the Danish Conservative party, Søren Pape Poulsen, said: “There is no one who really doubts that she was a candidate. I totally agree that she can’t talk about it. It’s also fair enough, because you can’t do that in this kind of job.”
If Stoltenberg remained in the position for another year, he would provide continuity for the alliance before the 75th-anniversary summit in the US next year. Nato does not directly coordinate the arms packages sent to Ukraine but acts as an advocate.
Stoltenberg appeared to keep his options open when he said earlier in the week: “I am responsible for all decisions that this alliance has to take, except for one. And that is about my future. That is for the 31 allies to decide.”
