EU selects Van Rompuy and Ashton

Council president

The president of the European Council is a new post created by the Lisbon treaty, which will come into effect on 1 December. Appointed for a two-and-a-half year term that can be extended to five years, the president will prepare and chair the meetings of heads of state and government, the European Council, which sets the broad policy priorities for the EU. Until now, the European Council has been chaired by the prime minister or president of the country that holds the six-month rotating presidency of the Council of Ministers. The rotating presidency will continue but will be limited to chairing ministerial meetings apart from those of foreign ministers. The Council president will also represent the EU at the level of head of state or government in international summits such as those with Russia, the US, China and Brazil.

High representative

The high representative for foreign and security policy will also, under the Lisbon treaty, be a vice-president of the European Commission. The marriage of two posts is supposed to ensure coherence between the foreign policy actions of the Council which include civilian and military missions and the traditional external policies where the Commission takes a leading role, such as trade, development aid and external assistance. The high representative will oversee the creation of a new external action service, made up of civil servants from the Commission, the secretariat of the Council and national diplomatic services. The service, which will work for the high representative, will be responsible for implementation of EU foreign policy. The European Commission's representations abroad will be merged with the Council offices to become “EU delegations”.