Outgoing Prime Minister Rutte rates himself with a barely adequate score. In one of them he says: “6, maybe 6.5.” Farewell interview With the NOS Youth News. A number of children were allowed to ask questions to the Prime Minister.

“Many things have succeeded,” the Prime Minister said in the conversation in Thuringia. “But you are doing it together. We have our shoulders on the wheel with nearly 18 million people.”

He also admits that things have not gone well and cites the benefits issue, gas extraction in Groningen and the housing market as examples. “So it’s a pass, but it’s not very good.”

Part of the interview:

In its broadcast NOS Youth News Rutte describes closing schools during the Corona pandemic as one of the most difficult decisions. “I think it was inevitable,” says the Prime Minister. “Sometimes in politics you just have to choose between miserable options. One option was to do less, but then more people would have died. To prevent that, we had to make another difficult decision, which was to reduce Telecommunications”.

This also goes against his liberalism. “The government shouldn’t interfere in our lives. It should make sure that schools are running and that there are good hospitals, but it shouldn’t tell us where we can or can’t go. Here we had to interfere in people’s lives. This was completely against everything we stand for.”

Rutte has led four governments in fourteen years, and will open the way for Dick Schoof next week. A VVD member exchanges Tourentje at NATO headquarters in Brussels. As of October 1, he will become head of the military coalition, a job that US President Biden has asked him to do.

“I visited him at the White House at the beginning of last year,” Rutte says. “A few days later he called and said: ‘The current NATO CEO, Jens Stoltenberg, is leaving his position, and we think you should do that.’ Then I had to say no because I had just had a new government.” Rutte feared new elections would be held if he left prematurely.

When the government fell last summer, the Prime Minister said he began “thinking again.” This enabled other member states to begin applying pressure, which culminated this week in his appointment as NATO chief.

Rutte believes there are two qualities that make him suitable for the NATO job. “I’ve shown that I can bring people together and make sure they don’t argue all day. For a job like this, you don’t have to have a very big ego.”

Looking back, the outgoing Prime Minister is particularly grateful. “Every time during the election people thought: ‘Well, he has to do it again,'” he added. What does he want to achieve in NATO? “That the feeling of insecurity stops, the feeling that war is back. That we continue to spend enough money on defense.”