EU president Van Rompuy to be highest paid

HERMAN Van Rompuy was anointed European Union president last night, scooping an eye-popping salary of £320,000.

Europe s president Herman Van Rompuy to be highest paid leader Europe's president Herman Van Rompuy to be highest paid leader

The prime minister of Belgium, a virtual nonentity on the world stage, was confirmed in the hugely powerful new job in a unanimous stitch-up by 27 national leaders over dinner in Brussels, as predicted in the Daily Express this week.

Herman Van Rompuy's massive pay package, revealed yesterday in leaked EU documents, will make him the highest paid leader in the Western world, earning more than US President Barack Obama. And in a shock appointment, his deputy will be Labour crony Baroness ­Ashton. The former quango chief and lobbyist was made the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs in a secretive deal brokered by Gordon Brown.

The appointments, which no one in Britain will ever get to vote on, were agreed over a two-hour dinner of truffles and sea bass. But the deal was last night branded an affront to democracy and another giant leap towards a meddling European superstate.

Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party, said: “The EU has appointed two political pygmies who have the power to remove the last vestiges of democracy from the UK. Baroness Ashton has never had a proper job and never been elected to public office. Naturally, from an EU point of view, that makes her ideally qualified to become the most powerful person in Europe.”

And turning to the presidential salary, he added: “It is an outrageous burden on taxpayers to pay an unelected bureaucrat more than the president of the United States.” Mr Brown risked fuelling the anger by claiming the appointments would “help safeguard British interests”.

He said: “This will ensure that Britain remains where we want to be, at the heart of Europe.”

And he reacted angrily when the Daily Express pointed out that the president was “unelected”. “He was elected Prime Minister of Belgium,” said Mr Brown.

Brussels insiders have already dubbed Mr Van Rompuy, 62, the “Belgian waffler” for his boring style.

On getting his job, he promised to listen to all EU members. “Even though our unity is our strength, our diversity remains our wealth,” he said. One critic likened the grubby behind-closed-door deals in Brussels to a communist dictatorship.

Tory MP Douglas Carswell said: “This is rather like the way they used to choose leaders in Communist China or the former Yugoslavia.

“It is not how leaders should be chosen in a proper democracy. It shows the lack of accountability at the heart of the European Union.”

Lorraine Mullally, of the think tank Open Europe, said: “This is an out rageous stitch-up by Europe’s elite and a perfect illustration of just how out of touch and anti-democratic the EU now is.”

A dossier obtained by Open Europe yesterday revealed details of the president’s remuneration package, on which he will pay just 25 per cent income tax.

He will have a staff of 22 press officers, assistants and administrators and a further 10 security agents. And he will have access to a £5million reserve fund to dip into as his job “develops”. The appointment of Baroness Ashton sparked widespread astonishment in diplomatic circles.

Cathy Ashton, 53, ennobled by Tony Blair in 1999, has never held a senior elected position.

She was a junior education minister until she went to Brussels as trade commissioner a year ago as a replacement for Lord Mandelson.

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