When Spain held the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2010, Salgado chaired the meetings of its Economic and Financial Affairs Council. During her time as chair, EU finance ministers agreed on a deal that provided $560 billion in new loans and $76 billion under an existing lending program to countries facing instability amid the European debt crisis. Also in 2010, she helped launch the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP), then a $875 million fund to help poor farmers, alongside several of her counterparts – Tim Geithner, Jim Flaherty and Yoon Jeung-hyun –, World Bank president Robert Zoellick and Bill Gates.