page_title: Herman Van Rompuy
section_title: President of the European Council
hierarchical_section_title: Herman Van Rompuy / Political career / President of the European Council
caption_attribution_description: English: The President of the European Council, Herman van Rompuy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, Madrid Español: El presidente del Consejo Europeo, Herman van Rompuy y el presidente de la Comisión Europea, José Manuel Durao Barroso, en Madrid
context_page_description: Herman Achille, Count Van Rompuy is a Belgian politician, who served as Prime Minister of Belgium from 2008 to 2009 and then as the first permanent President of the European Council from 2009 to 2014.
  A politician from Belgium's Christian Democratic and Flemish party, Van Rompuy served as the 49th prime minister of Belgium from 30 December 2008 until Yves Leterme succeeded him on 25 November 2009. On 19 November 2009 Van Rompuy was selected by the members of the European Council, which is the institution of the European Union comprising the heads of state or government of the EU member states, as the first full-time President of that Council under the Treaty of Lisbon. He was appointed for the period from 1 December 2009 until 31 May 2012, though he only took up his position officially on 1 January 2010. On 1 March 2012 he was re-elected for a second term, to last from 1 June 2012 until 30 November 2014. He was appointed chairman of the board of the College of Europe in 2019.
context_section_description: On 19 November 2009, Van Rompuy was chosen unanimously by the European Council, at an informal meeting in Brussels, to be the first full-time President of the European Council; for the period of 1 December 2009 (the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon) until 31 May 2012. He took up his position officially on 1 January 2010.
  
  Gordon Brown also praised Van Rompuy as "a consensus-builder" who had "brought a period of political stability to his country after months of uncertainty". This opinion is shared by others; he has been described as the painstaking builder of impossible compromises (l'horloger des compromis impossibles) A statement made by Van Rompuy at a news conference after his selection illustrates his approach: 
  "Every country should emerge victorious from negotiations. A negotiation that ends with a defeated party is never a good negotiation. I will consider everyone's interests and sensitivities. Even if our unity remains our strength, our diversity remains our wealth." He has also described his role of chairing a body composed of 27 heads of state or government (and finding consensus among them) as being "neither a spectator, nor a dictator, but a facilitator"
  Being pro-Europe, not all parties and factions had positive words for Van Rompuy when he took office. Nigel Farage attacked the freshly appointed president by saying, "You have the charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of a low grade bank clerk." He was fined €3000 (ten days' pay) for this statement by the Bureau of the European Parliament. These comments were a manifestation of the frustration of lack of democratic process in the appointment of Van Rompuy to presidency.
  In a November 2009 press conference, Van Rompuy related to global governance by stating: "2009 is also the first year of global governance with the establishment of the G20 in the middle of a financial crisis; the climate conference in Copenhagen is another step towards the global management of our planet." Van Rompuy referred to the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009.
  In or just before the first months of his presidency Van Rompuy visited all EU member states, he also organised an informal meeting of the heads of state of the EU. The meeting took place on 11 February 2010 in the Solvay Library (Brussels), topics to be discussed were the future direction of the economic policies of the EU, the outcome of the Copenhagen Conference and the then recent earthquake in Haiti.
  In fact, the meeting was in part taken over by the growing sovereign debt crisis (at that time, Greece), which was to become the hall mark of Van Rompuy's first two years as President. With EU member states holding divergent positions on this issue, he had to find compromises, not least between France and Germany, at subsequent European Council meetings and summits of Eurozone heads of state or government leading to the establishment of the three-year European Financial Stability Mechanism (EFSM)and the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) in May 2010 to provide loans to Greece (and later Ireland and Portugal) to help stabilise their borrowing costs, but subject to strict conditions.
  The European Council also gave him the assignment of chairing a task force on economic governance, composed of personal representatives (mostly ministers of finance) of the heads of government, which reported ahead of schedule to the October 2010 European Council. Its report, which proposed stronger macro-economic co-ordination within the EU in general and the Eurozone in particular and also a tightening of the Stability and Growth Pact was endorsed by the European Council. The latter also charged him with preparing, by December 2010, a proposal for a limited change to the Treaty required to enable a more permanent financial stability mechanism. His draft – for an addition to Article 136 TFEU, pertaining to the Eurozone – was endorsed by the European Council at its October 2010 meeting.
  His second year in office, 2011, was also marked by a deterioration of the Greek debt crisis, leading to Van Rompuy calling an ext
caption: Van Rompuy in a joint press conference with José Manuel Barroso, the President of the European Commission in May 2010
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D700", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "GIMP 2.6.8", "Image DateTime": "2010:05:22 11:59:46", "Image Artist": "", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "", "Image ExifOffset": "342", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "994", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1106", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6897", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/200", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "2500", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2010:05:18 13:35:47", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2010:05:18 13:35:47", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "35", "EXIF SubSecTime": "31", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "31", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "31", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "484", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "484", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "964", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 1, 2]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "35", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "High gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}