Herman Van Rompuy is the first European president

LOL Britain

So what do you know about this guy? He's a keen blogger I hear.

j/k GB, the anti-europe, anti-belgian tabloid crap was as low as we expected. :-)

You ain't seen nothin' yet

He's a very intelligent oldfashioned statesman, a quiet behind the screens type who has the ability to somehow get people who didn't agree for years to agree. At least, that's what he did over here in Belgium.

Sounds like what the job needs, but not likely to get anyone excited.

Exactly.

Baroness Ashton appointed as EU's foreign policy chief

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46761000/jpg/_46761132_006297127-1.jpg

I really have no idea who this is.

The gardening correspondent on the One Show.

The EU's just trolling sceptics and neocons now

I'm very happy he won, he def deserves it. Ace politician, like Stan says. YAY US. :-)

What's really funny is that the BBC were joining in with this OH NOES WE HAVE NEVER HEARD OF THIS MAN WHO USED TO BE PRIME MINISTER OF SOME COUNTRY 40 MILES AWAY FROM US and you'd kinda hope for better, really. Cheers for the new display name tho.

We don't care about other countries but it's their fault when we don't know anything about them?

I was watching the news last night with a combo of o_O and dropped jaw. It really was some of the shittiest reporting by the Beeb I'd seen for a while.

Do other countries have the same must-be-one-of-ours thing when it comes to these appointments? No doubt Brown has spent a lot of goodwill getting Baroness Ashton the job. Not sure why the average punter should care one way or the other.

No, I am the archetypical Belgian: forever downplaying one's talents, rarely if ever proud of a fellow Belgian winning. But y'know I'm gonna make an exception cause he IS a great politician.

Not sure why Britain gets any say in this at all, to be honest. Not using the Euro is reason enough to not elect a Brit to the top job, imho (his sucking at the middle east function he forced them to create for him probably didn't help his cause either).

He's one of the few great politicians we had and now amateurs like Leterme will be coming back :-(

I know. :-(((((

This is quite refreshing. You rarely if ever hear anyone in Britain referred to as a great politician.

StanM so OTM - not joining the Schengen agreement too. That really pisses me off.

I think having a European president is a great improvement on the rotating presidency. I hope the next one is elected by all EU citizens tho. We should have a system whereby you can't vote for a president from your own country, to avoid a German winning it every time on the basis of population numbers alone.

We should have a system whereby you can't vote for a president from your own country

In which case, elections could be tied in with the Eurovision song contest, to save money.

haha Zelda. I'll come clean -it *was* Eurovision that inspired the idea!

I'm glad to hear Van Rompuy is actually good, but that's not why he was elected, I fear. It's because he comes from a small country, and no one outside Belgium has heard of him and he doesn't look very charismatic, ie not a threat to Sarkozy or Merkel. Seems to me therefore a vote of no confidence in the newly created position, but if he's actually good then he could turn that around.

StanM so OTM - not joining the Schengen agreement too. That really pisses me off.

Why? It's just airport queues. It makes no practical difference to the extent of Britain's economic and social integration with the rest of Europe.

a crying shame. nice guy and all but this is NOT who we needed
http://www.economist.com/blogs/charlemagne/2009/11/_normal_0_false_false_4.cfm

I'm glad to hear Van Rompuy is actually good, but that's not why he was elected, I fear. It's because he comes from a small country, and no one outside Belgium has heard of him and he doesn't look very charismatic, ie not a threat to Sarkozy or Merkel. Seems to me therefore a vote of no confidence in the newly created position, but if he's actually good then he could turn that around.

Yup. You do need quiet facilitators in the game but after Barroso, Buszek and Ashton, this is a bit much. Just keep them bland and anonymous...

Why? It's just airport queues. It makes no practical difference to the extent of Britain's economic and social integration with the rest of Europe.

Err, no... Schengen is the basis for common immigration policy, a common justice framework (extradition etc) so pretty major policies I'd say.

Sorry will shut up now

"Ireland and the United Kingdom opted out of Schengen's border control arrangements, while participating in certain provisions relating to judicial and police cooperation."

There's nothing about immigration policy in Schengen.

schengen = common visas, common decision on asylum seekers, etc

I'm absolutely not defending Britain's failure to integrate into Europe economically or socially, but our being partial signatories of Schengen while not being in Schengen border control zone is pretty much the last thing you should be worrying about.

yeah, not really an issue in my view. I wasn't that against Blair but, yeah, there would have been something awkward having a Brit heading the EU and supposedly inspriring it (not that Van Rompuy will inspire anyone). Juncker got cheated again

It does seem ironic that they've gone to all this trouble to create a post for someone who is supposed to be the big-time symbolic visible face of the EU, going head to head with Obama, Putin et al. ... only to appoint a largely unknown character with a reputation as a quiet behind-the-scenes facilitator. But let's hope he can make something of it.

Think they should have gone down the Mayor of London/celeb route and appointed, I dunno, Florian Schneider or someone.

Someone who can manage big egos, like Jose Mourinho?

Van Rompuy seems like a good choice, trying to hold a belgian coalition together seems like the best preparation you could have for leading Europe. I presume that now he is gone, belgium will not have a government for 6 months.

alas I have to agree.

it's good that you can sing the "robin van persie" chant to "herman van rompuy"