President of the European Council also led to their rejection. On 19 November 2009, Herman Van Rompuy, at that time Prime Minister of Belgium, was appointed the first full-time President of the European Council. The formal decision on the appointment was made after the Treaty of Lisbon came into force on 1 December 2009. The British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, said that he had unanimous backing from the 27 EU leaders at the summit in Brussels on the evening of 19 November 2009. Brown praised Van Rompuy as "a consensus builder" who had "brought a period of political stability to his country after months of
Herman Van Rompuy to Van Rompuy calling an extraordinary meeting of the Eurozone heads of state or government in July to adopt a first package of further measures (notably longer term loans at lower interest rates, private sector debt-writedown, further fiscal consolidation in Greece) and again in October (in conjunction with full European Council meetings) to contain contagion from Greece to other countries (through bank recapitalisation across Europe and by leveraging the firepower of the EFSF to about €1 trillion). His first two years were also marked by his role in co-ordinating European positions on the world stage at G8 and G20 summits