It’s been nearly four decades since then US secretary of state Henry Kissinger supposedly asked in frustration: “Who do I call when I want to speak to Europe?” Kissinger wanted a Europe with clout and a leader to match, and judging by reaction to the naming of two obscure politicians to the top jobs in the EU under the recently-ratified Lisbon Treaty, he still doesn’t know. EU leaders meeting in a closed-door session chose little-known Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy, 62, a bureaucrat, for the post of the President of the European Council, and Catherine Ashton, perhaps the even lesser-known EU Trade Com­missioner, in the job for year and who has never held high elected office, to be the de facto Foreign Minister. That puts them in the unenviable positions of representing the EU to the world for crucial political, trade and diplomatic matters, although critics said their appointments were designed to marginalize them and keep power in the hands of more formidable political figures such as French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel – who made the appointments – and keep a more celebrated figure like former British prime minister Tony Blair from having the limelight. It left political analysts wondering who leads the EU: Van Rompuy, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, or Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, whose country takes over the rotating EU Presidency January 1, when Von Rompuy takes office.

Nearly 40 years after then US secretary of state Henry Kissinger famously asked, “Who speaks for Europe,” the answer is ….. Herman Van Rompuy.
Who?
If he hadn’t been pre-selected, and then named the European Union’s  first President (technically he is President of the European Council)  and then appointed in a secret closed-door session of EU leaders where Germany and France said they would be the kingmakers – and were – virtually no one in the international scene would know who he was, and many still don’t.
Van Rompuy, 62, is the Belgian Prime Minister and was the compromise choice in a deal which allowed the EU’s dominant power, the Center-Right, to have the top job of Mr. Europe, while giving the Socialists and Center-Left the next in command new position of a de facto Foreign Minister, which went to another obscure figure, Catherine Ashton of the United Kingdom, who has been the EU’s Trade Minister for a year, but has never been elected to a ministerial job and was savaged in reviews by the media in her own country, who labeled her unready for the job of representing the EU in conflicts and diplomatic hot spots around the world, replacing the outgoing Javier Solana, whose title had been High Representative.
After British Prime Minister Gordon Brown agreed on Ashton and stopped pushing former prime minister Tony Blair, his predecessor, for the EU President’s job when it became clear Blair didn’t have the votes and was being blocked by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who wanted a weak president who wouldn’t overshadow them and could be controlled in Brussels, the door was open for the new top jobs under the recently-ratified Lisbon Treaty to be named without any dissent. Ashton has to be accepted by the European Parliament, but Van Rompuy’s term is for 2 ½ years and he can be re-appointed for only one term if EU leaders concur.
Before he even spoke for the first time, Van Rompuy was being denigrated in the press for his inexperience and low profile, having served as Belgian Prime Minister for only 11 months and plucked out of near-retirement to use his bureaucratic skills to hold together his country, which was fractured by a split between the French and Dutch-speaking populaces and almost on the verge of secession. He garnered praise for that, but critics said there is a huge difference between representing Belgium in the EU and speaking for the 27, diverse Member States of the EU, although he acknowledged he had been chosen because EU leaders want consensus, not leadership, and said he could deliver that.
But he didn’t get off an auspicious start at his first news conference after being named during a brief night session, speaking mostly in French, although English is the preferred language of diplomacy around the world. “I did not seek this high position and I did not make steps to achieve it …  but I take this task with conviction and enthusiasm,” he said, although his low-key, soft-spoken style didn’t display any. “Only one profile is possible and it’s one of dialogue, of unity and of action. Every country should emerge victorious from negotiations,” Van Rompuy said, a noble goal that hasn’t been achieved yet.

Who is Mr. Europe?
His desire to build consensus will be tested as soon as he takes office on January 1, 2010 – the same day that Spain assumes the rotating Presidency of the EU. Theoretically, Van Rompuy should be the driving force behind the EU during the Spanish presidency. But Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, a bigger name, has made it clear he will not be sidelined - and EU rules mean that he will have his hands on the levers of power in Brussels.
 “Member states still want the (rotating presidency) to play a key role, and it will,” because Spanish diplomats, not Van Rompuy’s staff, will chair key discussions such as ambassadorial meetings, Janis Emmanouilidis, senior policy analyst at the European Policy Centre think tank in Brussels, told Deutsche-Presse-Agentur (dpa.) Analysts say that that situation could quickly lead to clashes if both Van Rompuy and Zapatero seek to speak on behalf of the EU.
“The first conflicts will be over foreign policy and who has what competences, leadership and visibility. The question is, who will be the first to act in an international crisis?” Piotr Kaczynski, an EU expert at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) told dpa. Zapatero has said his presidency will push for Turkish membership of the EU but Van Rompuy has in the past expressed opposition to Turkey joining the union. Van Rompuy shied away from confrontation and appeared to take his new role as EU ”coordinator” in stride, saying: “My personal views are irrelevant, my role is to find consensus.”
And he will have to contend with another President, that of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, who, along with whoever holds the six-month rotating EU Presidency, generally is the point man for the EU around the world at international summits. The EU finds itself with the prospect of having to decide who will take that seat: Van Rompuy, Zapatero, or Barroso.  In typical EU fashion of shying away from confrontation, EU officials said all three would, with Van Rompuy and Zapatero flanking Barroso, which didn’t answer the question of just who was the EU’s leader.
Van Rompuy, looking professorial and shy, acknowledged the difficulty he might face in dealing with the six-month presidency the EU has given in lieu of having a president, which has led to uneven results. “It’s my intention that our work takes on a perspective that goes beyond six months,” he said. That underscored yet another problem: no one could give answers as to what exactly he would do or what his job description was, beyond his annual salary of 240,000 euros and being a consensus builder.
Behind the scenes during the secret appointment lurked two people who political analysts consider the real leaders of the EU anyway - Sarkozy and Merkel - who said they would decide between them who the EU’s first president would be, and it became clear quickly they didn’t want a political celebrity like Blair who could overshadow them, so they blocked him. Sarkozy played it coy when asked who would now be representing the face of Europe. “The image of Europe is European unity,” he said. “At the moment, Merkel is the president of Europe politically, and (Van Rompuy) will have to find a way of dealing with that,” Kaczynski said.
Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, whose country holds the current rotating Presidency, and who brokered the deal, tried to put the best face on the selection of two political unknowns to represent the EU around the world at summits and trouble spots. “We are convinced that Van Rompuy will be excellent in guiding the work of the (European) council ... We have seen how good (Ashton) is in convincing people,” he said after the shorter-than-expected summit in Brussels, when it became evident Van Rompuy had been pre-chosen after the Belgian Prime Minister went to his Parliament for a farewell speech before the meeting was held.
Merkel said the appointments reinforced the belief that “consensus really is the driving force among different opinions and convictions” in Europe, but analysts said the choices reflected the desire of national governments to prevent Brussels from gaining too much power and that Van Rompuy won’t the one who leaders such US President Barack Obama or Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao call in a pinch or crisis, and that the diminutive leader doesn’t have the stature or experience to take on people like Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has cowed more experienced EU diplomats and statesmen. “While Van Rompuy may keep the profile of the European Council (the body representing member states) relatively low vis-a-vis other EU institutions, the price that is being paid is no leadership,” Kaczynski said, reflecting a dominant opinion in the media and among think tank analysts that when the EU has three presidents, it has none, that no one really speaks for Europe and that the image of consensus and unity is a slogan in the halls of Brussels only.