The EU's new foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton smiles as she addresses the media at the European Council building in Brussels, Thursday, Nov. 19, 2009. The EU leaders agreed on trade commissioner Catherine Ashton of Britain as the EU's new foreign policy chief and Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy as its president, diplomats said.
Newly appointed European Council President-elect Herman Van Rompuy sits in his car as he leaves the Belgian Parliament in Brussels, Friday, Nov. 20, 2009. The European Union's new president is a soft-spoken figure with a penchant for haiku poetry who spent most of his career in the background of Belgian politics.
Various Belgian newspapers show the newly appointed European Council President-elect Herman Van Rompuy, on their front pages in Brussels, published Friday, Nov. 20, 2009. EU leaders have opted for little-known compromise candidate Belgian Premier Herman Van Rompuy to become the bloc's first full-time president.
Catherine Ashton: International woman of mystery.
Ashton is Europe's new foreign policy chief, the international representative of half a billion people, with a euro7 billion ($10.5 billion) budget and a salary of more than $300,000 a year — but in her homeland, it's hard to find many who have heard of her.
The former anti-nuclear activist turned career Eurocrat is the European Union's new high representative for foreign affairs — and it's almost as much of a surprise to her as it is to her fellow Britons.
Ashton told the BBC Friday that she only found out she was a front-runner for the post in the last few days. She acknowledged her low profile, but promised that "over the next few months and years I aim to show that I am the best person for the job."
Critics slammed the EU for a lack of ambition in choosing her and Belgium's technocratic premier, Herman van Rompuy, who becomes the first EU president. Ashton's new job combines two existing ones, giving her more powers than current foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
"The EU member states have talked themselves into choosing two very competent, able, and — frankly — rather boring choices for these two new roles," said Richard Whitman, a Europe expert at London's Chatham House think tank.
The 27-nation EU created the new posts of president and foreign minister as part of a reform treaty that takes effect Dec. 1.
For weeks rumors swirled that the jobs would go to high-profile candidates like former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and current Foreign Secretary David Miliband, politicians who could give the EU greater diplomatic clout on issues such as climate change, terrorism and trade.
Instead, European leaders on Thursday chose Ashton and van Rompuy, an unassuming man nicknamed "Rompuy-pumpy" by British tabloids. He is best known for penning Flemish-language haikus, which he publishes on a blog.
"Three waves. Roll into port together. The trio is home," ran one effort on the subject of Belgian-Spanish-Hungrian cooperation, which van Rompuy read out at a press conference last month.
The EU presidency was initially seen as the bigger job of the two — especially when Blair was being promoted as a candidate — but that view has shifted.
The treaty is vague on what the president is supposed to do, other than encourage more European integration. Van Rompuy, 62, did little to raise expectations, pledging to be "discreet" in his new job.
As foreign minister, Ashton gets a say over the EU's annual euro7 billion ($10.5 billion) foreign aid budget, will head a new 5,000-strong EU diplomatic corps and travel the globe to represent the EU's interests.
On the streets of London, only one in 10 people stopped at random recognized a picture of the 53-year-old bureaucrat, who has never been elected to public office.
"I've absolutely never heard of her before I watched the news this morning, " said London businessman Leonard Finch, 40. But, he added, "I think we should give her a chance to prove herself."
Trained as an economist, Ashton worked in the 1970s for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Now, she must lead Europe's efforts to contain Iran's nuclear program.
A longtime member of Britain's governing Labour Party, she worked for several charities dealing with equality issues and for a local health authority in England before she was anointed Baroness Ashton of Upholland and made a member of the House of Lords in 1999. She served as a junior government minister and Labour's leader in the Lords.
She has spent the past year as EU Trade Commissioner, a role in which she has barely caused a ripple. She signed a trade pact with South Korea, worked to revive the stalled global negotiations at the World Trade Organization and defrost trade relations with the United States after President George W. Bush left office.
Ashton insisted she was not restricted by her lack of a popular mandate.
"Twenty-seven elected representative heads of state have had a say, and they all decided on me," she told the BBC.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown said she was a good choice, and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, her Washington counterpart while she was trade commissioner, said Ashton was a woman of "formidable intelligence, vision, compassion, and charm."
But Euroskeptics said it was wrong to give an unelected bureaucrat so much power.
"Everything about this process rubs our noses in how undemocratic the EU is," said Conservative European lawmaker Daniel Hannan.
"For 300 years, Europeans fought to establish the principle that their leaders should be answerable to everyone else. Now, they are reversing that principle."
However, many politicians opposed to a stronger role for Europe privately prefer obscure Brussels bureaucrats to Blair, whose charisma and international reputation would have given the EU a big boost. Blair's candidacy was doomed when France and Germany, the EU's biggest powers, did not support him.
An official close to Blair, who was not authorized to publicly discuss the former British leader's reaction, said the ex-prime minister had suspected for some time that Europe wanted to keep the post low-profile.
Thursday's decision was "hardly a surprise; the direction of travel has been clear for some time," the official said. European leaders were clear they wanted a "chair, not president."
The EU's first permanent president, Belgian Prime Minister Herman van Rompuy, is a camera-shy man who has been catapulted from relative obscurity.
After his selection at a Brussels summit, he stressed his credentials as a consensus politician and made it clear he would fulfil the role of a chairman rather than a globe-trotting statesman.
His tasks include liaising with EU leaders and arranging the bloc's annual summits. He says tackling climate change and lowering EU unemployment rates are among his priorities.
The centre-right leader has a reputation as a good negotiator with a self-deprecating sense of humour, which helped him to hold together a fractious coalition government at home.
Shortly after his presidential appointment was announced, the 62-year-old drily remarked on previous US complaints about the EU lacking a central go-to figure. "I'm anxiously awaiting the first phone call," he said.
But his appointment may be bad news for Belgium's troubled coalition of Dutch- and French-speaking parties, which could fall apart without his careful stewardship.
In linguistically divided Belgium, he is seen as a unifying force, taking an even-handed approach to resolving conflicts - a skill that is expected to serve him well in Europe's top job.
Mr Van Rompuy has pledged to be discreet in his new role. He is little known outside Belgium and has attended only two European summits.
With such a limited international reputation, critics say he will struggle to command attention when he travels on behalf of Europe.
But his modest demeanour belies outspoken political beliefs. An avowed federalist, he has called for national symbols within the EU to be replaced by European symbols.
He has also called for a tax on financial transactions within the bloc to fund the EU.
A veteran politician from Belgium's Flemish Christian Democrat party, he has been outspoken in the past in opposition to Turkey joining the EU. He warned it could dilute Europe's Christian heritage.
"Turkey is not a part of Europe and will never be part of Europe," he said as an opposition politician five years ago.
"The universal values which are in force in Europe, and which are fundamental values of Christianity, will lose vigour with the entry of a large Islamic country such as Turkey."
Mr Van Rompuy was originally reluctant to take on the post of Belgian prime minister at the end of 2008. He replaced Yves Leterme, who resigned amid a financial scandal last December after just nine months in the job.
Riven by post-election squabbling, Belgium had already been through two prime ministers in 12 months and seemed in danger of splitting apart, due to the arguments over devolution plans between the Dutch- and French-speaking parties.
Something of a moderate in Belgium's increasingly polarised politics, Mr Van Rompuy was eventually persuaded to take on the job by Belgian King Albert II.
He was appointed prime minister, having held the position of president of the lower house of parliament since July 2007.
The trained economist inherited a fragile government coalition and a nation facing a global economic crisis that had crippled Belgian banking giant Fortis.
He had previously served as budget minister in the Christian Democrat-led government from 1993 to 1999, during which time he took a tough stance on balancing the books, drastically reducing the country's public debt.
Before that, Mr Van Rompuy was leader of the Flemish Christian Democrats between 1988 and 1993.
He has penned several books - mainly on social and political issues - and is also an avid blogger and haiku writer.
He is said to sometimes compose the 17-syllable Japanese-style poems during political meetings and has been known to read out his compositions at such gatherings.
One offering on Mr Van Rompuy's website is called EU Trio-presidency, but any message therein about his political ambitions is well concealed:
Before his appointment, people on the streets of Brussels voiced mixed emotions about the prospect of their prime minister becoming Europe's figurehead.
A sense of national pride was countered by one of foreboding about how Belgium's government would cope without him.
A poll by Euronews found respondents in the capital reluctant to lose a peace-maker "indispensable in keeping the peace between the different communities".
"It would be a pity," said one resident. "It would mean political instability in Belgium. A good thing for Europe a bad thing for Belgium!"
Before entering politics, Mr Van Rompuy worked at the Belgian central bank from 1972 to 1975.
One of a family of politicians, his younger brother, Eric Van Rompuy, is also a politician for the CD&V, while his sister, Christine Van Rompuy, is a member of the Workers Party of Belgium.
Herman Van Rompuy is married with four children.
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