Compromise as Blair EU president bid fails
Belgian prime minister Herman van Rompuy named first-ever president of European Council as Tony Blair misses out
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By Matt Hallam. |  |
Thursday, 19, Nov 2009 08:49
By Matthew Champion
Belgian prime minister Herman van Rompuy will become the first-ever president of the European Council after a unanimous decision by the leaders of the 27 member states.
At a summit in Brussels Mr Van Rompuy was chosen as a compromise candidate after Britain dropped its longstanding insistence the job go to former prime minister Tony Blair.
As a part of the deal, Baroness Catherine Ashton - formerly of the House of Lords but now EU trade commissioner - became the bloc's foreign affairs chief.
Both Mr Van Rompuy and Baroness Ashton are relative unknowns with little or no foreign policy experience.
However they represent the perfect balance the EU was seeking; leaders had aimed for one of the roles to go to a larger member of the EU and the other a smaller country. It was also hoped that the president would be a centre-right politician and the high representative for foreign affairs hail from the centre-left.
Mr Van Rompuy only took office in Belgium last year but is credited with bringing the country back from the brink of separation with his consensual, coalition-building approach. Baroness Ashton meanwhile, though not well known even in the UK, has been deemed a success since becoming the EU's senior trade representative.
The roles, part of the Lisbon Treaty, are designed at giving the EU better representation on the world stage and to ensure it maintains its economic clout.
Mr Van Rompuy, 62, will hold office for the next two and a half years and is entitled to be re-elected once.
His and Baroness Ashton's selection mark the end of years of speculation since the aborted EU treaty was first mooted. Its successor the Lisbon Treaty will finally come into law on December 1st.
Although Mr Blair had never officially thrown his hat into the ring Downing St had thrown its full backing behind his 'bid' for the president's job.
However, the key powers of France and Germany were unhappy with such a high-profile and potentially polarising appointment.
It is thought that Gordon Brown forced socialist allies in the EU to agree that if the UK could not put Mr Blair into power then the foreign affairs role, once earmarked for foreign secretary David Miliband, would go to a Briton.