Rutte is visiting China with the country’s Foreign Trade minister, Geoffrey van Leeuwen. The trip comes after a year in which the Netherlands decided, under pressure from the United States, to restrict some of the export of advanced chip printing machines by Dutch chips champion ASML to China. ASML estimates that the impact of the … Read more
“I can only become prime minister if ALL parties in the coalition support it. That was not the case,” Wilders said Wednesday on X, formerly Twitter. It would be the first time since 1982 that the leader of the winning party in a Dutch general election didn’t become prime minister. Wilders said his decision had … Read more
“Russia will remain the most significant and direct threat to the Alliance for the foreseeable future,” he wrote. Iohannis would be the first NATO chief from a country that was once in the Soviet bloc, but he faces an uphill struggle to edge out Rutte. The U.S., Britain, France and Germany — the four biggest … Read more
Saying that they don’t mean to stand in the way of Rutte, a senior Eastern European diplomat said: “At least somebody has to ask, ‘OK, Mark, how are you going to deal with Russia?’” They also cite Rutte’s repeated failure to bring Dutch defense spending up to the target of 2 percent of GDP agreed … Read more
Berlin’s endorsement follows an intense 24-hour diplomatic campaign to shore up support for the Dutchman, amid ongoing hesitation from a group of around 10 countries including in Eastern Europe as well as Hungary and Turkey. POLITICO first reported on Wednesday that two-thirds of NATO’s allies now support Rutte. The U.S. declared its backing for the … Read more