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 and bilateral summits, such as the tense 5 October 2010 EU-China summit. He called a special European Council at short notice in early 2011 on the emerging Libya crisis, which, in agreeing conditions for military intervention, made it impossible for Germany to oppose such intervention once the conditions were fulfilled. On 1 March 2012 Herman Van Rompuy was re-elected unanimously as President of the European Council by the heads of state or government of the 27 EU member states. President Van Rompuy's second term has lasted for two and a half years, from 1 June 2012 to 30 November 2014.