Congratulations pour in for new EU president

From now on the US knows who to call if President Obama wants to phone Europe – the old so-called Kissinger question attributed to the former US secretary of state is finally answered.

And Barack Obama was quick to lend his support to the naming of the EU’s first president, while other world leaders congratulated themselves. Angela Merkel, German Chancellor said: “In the end we had to decide. We made a good decision, avoiding the prospect of a small minority blocking it We got a candidate who brings consensus and whose political competencies have long been tested and tried throughout his political career.” French President Nicolas Sarkozy added a somewhat back handed complement: “I think it’s a very wise decision to have chosen as the first, stable president of the Council a man who comes from one of the founding countries of the European Union, from an important country but not one of the most important countries, so that no one will feel excluded from the process.” But not everyone was happy with the outcome. euronews asked one of the losing candidates, Jean Claude Juncker, if he was disappointed. “In politics, you don’t have the right to put your own dreams before everything,” he said.

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