NATO has no plans to name its new headquarters after the late Sen. John McCain despite requests from the public, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday.
The alliance has no tradition of naming buildings after politicians and will find some other way to honor McCain, who was a major supporter of the alliance, Stoltenberg said during an appearance at the Heritage Foundation think tank.
“We are 29 allies with a lot of presidents, kings, heads of state in government, so we haven’t introduced that tradition,” he said. “I’m certain that we will be able to honor John McCain but not necessarily through naming a building and actually we honor John McCain every day through the fact that we stand together in NATO and deliver strong trans-Atlantic deterrence and defense.”
McCain, a staunch defender of the alliance, died last month due to brain cancer and a movement began in Europe among politicians in the UK and former NATO secretary generals to name the billion-dollar headquarters being built in Brussels after him.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers in Congress — Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Ben Cardin, D-Md., and Reps. Mike Gallagher, R-Wisc., and Jimmy Panetta, D-Calif. — introduced a resolution earlier this month supporting naming the building after McCain.
The resolution was supported by 20 other lawmakers from the House and Senate.
