Although his mandate was originally due to expire on October 1, 2022, Stoltenberg will remain at the head of NATO until October 2024, i.e. two years longer than planned, in the absence of a consensus in the bloc to elect another candidate.
At the time, the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s name was even being handled about in the media as a candidate for the post, but this possibility later faded away in the wake of internal differences within the North Atlantic grouping.
It is an honor for me that the members of the Atlantic alliance decided to extend my stay as secretary general of that organization until October 1, 2024, Stoltenberg wrote on his Twitter account.
The decision will be officially confirmed at the summit on the 11th, to be held in Vilnius, where the plenary sessions will be conditioned by the internal controversy within NATO on whether or not it is possible to accept Ukraine’s demand to join the bloc.
Stoltenberg himself, who is known for his positions in favor of Kiev’s rearmament and the increase in military spending by European countries, admitted that the issue of Ukrainian membership would be left off the agenda of the summit.
For the NATO secretary general, Ukraine now needs all kinds of support, financial, economic, commercial and military, but without an official entry into the alliance, the fifth article of whose basic document contains the collective security of its members.
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