WORLD> Europe
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WORLD> Europe
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Belgian-British duo wins race for EU's top jobs
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-11-20 05:03
BRUSSELS: EU leaders on Thursday handed the European Union's top new jobs to two little-known compromise figures — Belgium's prime minister and the EU's trade commissioner — dashing hopes of those who wanted to raise the continent's global profile. The choice caps years of choppy efforts to give a united Europe a voice on the world stage commensurate with its economic heft. 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. But their appointments suggested the need for compromise outweighed the desire for big names like Tony Blair, the former British leader who was once considered a leading contender for the presidential job. The two new officials are supposed to give the EU a bigger role in such global issues as climate change, terrorism and trade.
While the EU president was initially seen as the bigger job, much attention has shifted to the foreign minister, who gets a say over the bloc's annual euro7 billion ($10.5 billion) foreign aid budget and will head a new 5,000-strong EU diplomatic corps. Ashton, who has never been elected to public office and is largely unknown outside Britain, had seemed an unlikely choice. She won the foreign policy brief after British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and left-leaning leaders from Spain, Greece, Slovakia, Slovenia, Portugal and Austria decided to put her name forward. |
