Last November, Herman Van Rompuy, the then Belgian Prime Minister, was appointed, by the 27 EU member states’ heads of state and government, in a behind closed doors meeting, the first full-time President of the European Council, for a term of two and a half years. He is supposed to represent over 500 million citizens but those citizens had no say on his appointment.
The EU president has at his disposal the staff of the General Secretariat such as the Directorate for general political questions, the Legal Service, translation services, and press office. I said, at the time, that Mr Van Rompuy was likely to have a salary around £270,000 and that taxpayers were expected to pay around £5.5million a year just on the president costs.
According to a press release from Lord Stoddart of Swindon, Lord Astor of Hever has confirmed that the President of the European Council, Mr Van Rompuy, costs, in 2010, to taxpayers €6m (£4.98m), including salary (£273,814), staff and travel expenses.
