Belgian Prime Minister Herman van Rompuy, a little-know federalist, has been elected European Union’s first President by the member states of the Union.
According to the Daily Telegraph, van Rompuy is a poetry-writing economist almost entirely unknown outside Belgium until he emerged as EU leaders’ choice for a President who could not possibly overshadow national leaders.
A staunch advocate of European integration, he has backed policies including a European-wide tax on all financial transactions to fund EU …

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair tonight bowed out of the race to become the first President of the European Council when it became clear that centre-right leaders, who dominate the EU, are determined that the post should go to their group, the Guardian reports.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown abandoned his support for Blair shortly before a dinner of EU leaders at an emergency summit in Brussels tonight, but he appears likely to secure for his former …

To my surprise, the readers of The Empire Chronicles have voted former Prime Minister Tony Blair as their favourite candidate for the EU presidency, despite the fact that his chances to nail the post are slimmer than ever.
42 per cent of the respondents – 620 people – said that Blair would be the best candidate to become the European Union’s first President. Former Czech President Vaclav Havel came in second with 22% support – 329 …

Latvia and Finland are theoretically prepared to support Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves for the President of the European Union, Estonian media reports.
Latvian Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis said that Ilves is an honourable candidate for the unelected EU presidency.
Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen said today that Finland is ready to support Ilves as the EU President.

The European Commission accuse the UK Government of failing to protect citizens’ privacy, the Commission say that the Government should have done more to guarantee online privacy when trials of a controversial ad-serving system were carried out in 2006, the BBC reports.
The Commission said they had now started the second phase of legal action over the trials. If the UK fails to answer the criticism satisfactorily, it faces being taken to the European court.
“People’s privacy and …

Russian news agency Ria Novosti are rolling out a new public relations campaign in Brussels which aims to justify Russia’s great power ambitions and improve the image of the murderous dictator Joseph Stalin.
The state-owned news agency have teamed up with a little-known Washington, London and Zurich-based consultancy called RJI Companies and are trying to recruit one of the top 10 PR firms in Brussels to put the project in play, EUObserver reports.
The primary contract …

An American airplane captain for Continental Airlines died today during the flight from Brussels to Newark, the aircraft was landed safely by two co-pilots.
The flight departed from Brussels at 9:45 this morning and it made an emergency landing at Newark Airport at 4PM, the Telegraph reports.
According to the report, the pilot died of natural causes and his body was removed from the cockpit, and placed in the aircraft’s galley area.
Spokesman for Continental Airlines said that …