Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy is now the first President of the European Union. The leaders of the Member States chose him unexcpectedly painless over dinner tonight in Brussels. They ended up choosing more a chairman than a leader, which suits well for the countries who don’t wish to be walked over by a strong president.  It thas been said that the new President will likely to be someone, who doesn’t face much objection rather than someone, who has a lot of support. Therefore it is only natural that the new President is not widely-known. But who is this man, and what can we excpect from him?

Flemish Van Rompuy, 62, will give the face for the European Union. Look carefully at him, this is the man who will sit in negotationtables with Barack Obama, Hu Jintao and other world leaders. This was also a big reason for the quitness of the selection process. European union wants to give the image, that they stand in united front behind this man. But that is why we can only speculate, how come he became chosen for the job.

Master of Compromise?

Belgian politics is said to be an art of compromise, but still the country was in verge of even falling apart less than one year ago because of the disputes between Flemish- and French speaking parts of the country. Former budget minister from the 90’s was asked for help and he did succeed to steer the country out of the crisis. Hopefully this low-key figure will have enough power to unify Europe the same way he managed to unify Belgium. He certainly made a good start, his nomination pleases both, the socialists and the conservativesas well as small and big member states.

“Poet Prime Minister”

Van Rompuy is called “poet Prime Minister” because of his interest in japanese haikus, which he writes in Flemish. He has published six books and he is an active blogger aswell. It is said he sometimes writes haikus even during political meetings – not possible in the future anymore, I’m afraid. His rhetoretical skills will certainly be useful in his new position. It will not be an easy task to build consensus in European Union, let alone to convince the outside world about it.

Sources: Reuters, BBC, Daily Telegraph

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