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
Herman Van Rompuy for said the government would pass a law to enforce the 500 million euro charge for this year, adding that this could also be contested by GDF Suez." On 19 November 2009, Van Rompuy was chosen unanimously by the European Council, at an informal meeting in Brussels, to be the first full-time President of the European Council; for the period of 1 December 2009 (the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon) until 31 May 2012. He took up his position officially on 1 January 2010. Gordon Brown also praised Van Rompuy as "a consensus-builder" who had "brought a