Mark Rutte is Mr. Nice Guy on day 1 at NATO toward the EU, Ukraine, Trump — even Putin

BRUSSELS — Mark Rutte vowed to provide continuity as he took over the leadership of NATO on Tuesday — but perhaps with more jokes than his Nordic predecessor.

The former Dutch premier took over as alliance secretary-general from Jens Stoltenberg in a highly choreographed ceremony, with the old boss passing an Icelandic wooden gavel to the new boss, surrounded by ambassadors from all 32 NATO allies.

As soon as the formalities were completed, Rutte stepped onto the press conference stage and vowed to keep supporting Ukraine, while recognizing the contribution of controversial U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump in piling pressure on Europe’s loose defense spending and lax approach to China.

Rutte even cracked a joke about the Kremlin, which had said in a press statement that Moscow didn’t foresee any changes with the change of NATO leadership.

“The Kremlin on this particular issue has excellent sources, and I couldn’t have said it in a better way,” he said.

Rutte, known for his frugal mindset on EU spending, also admitted he didn’t set the best example when it came to defense spending in the Netherlands, which didn’t meet NATO’s target of two percent of GDP being spent on defense, a figure agreed a decade ago, until this year.

“Obviously you have a point here, that we should have done this earlier,” he said when asked about Dutch spending.

He also began his tenure in Brussels with a dig at the long EU meetings he used to have in the city.

Brussels, he told an earlier session with NATO ambassadors, “is a city I’ve gotten to know well over the years — thanks to the endless amount of EU Council meetings I’ve attended.”

Still, that deep EU knowledge provides a marked distinction between Rutte (who was Dutch PM for 14 years) and his predecessor (who comes from non-EU Norway).

“I’m good friends with all the senior leaders in EU, and I’m looking forward to working with them,” Rutte said, adding that he’s scheduled meetings with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and António Costa, the incoming European Council president.

“I welcome, I must say, EU’s efforts on defense,” Rutte stressed, a somewhat more positive stance towards the EU than Stoltenberg, who was skeptical of the bloc’s plans on defense policy. “Nobody wants, let’s say, duplication of what NATO already is doing, so I think we can be on one page on this.”

As NATO chief, Rutte is supposed to be neutral on domestic politics and ensure continued support from all allies despite political changes.

That requirement is all the more necessary when it comes to the U.S.

“President Trump, thanks to him, we pushed up the defense spending, we sped up the defense spending since the summit here in 2018 particularly, but also what he said on China is now very much taken on board, I think, by many of us,” Rutte said.

Kamala Harris, on the other hand, “has a record as vice president and now as a candidate in defending American values.”

“I respect them both very much,” Rutte added.