President of the European Council extended his influence into financial policy, the most important area left to the rotating Council presidency, with the rotating presidency seeing a greater decrease in power than previously planned. Many of the changes introduced with the Lisbon Treaty need concretion through practical implementation by the current actors. The Spanish presidency unsuccessfully tried to challenge the European Council president's prominent post during the first rotating presidency of 2010, while the second half of the year saw a Belgian rotating presidency marked by a weakened caretaker government which did not challenge Herman van Rompuy, himself a Belgian politician. The Belgian rotating presidency
President of the European Council Lisbon Treaty came into force on 1 December 2009 with a term stretching until 31 May 2012. His term was later extended with a second period ending on 30 November 2014. The current president, for the term 1 June 2017 until 30 November 2019, is the former Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. He was reelected on 9 March 2017. The first meeting of all EU (then EC) heads of state or government was held in 1961 as an informal summit, but only became formalised in 1974, when it was baptised "European Council" by the then French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.