President of the European Council the member state holding the semiannually rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union at any given time. However, since the 2007 Treaty of Lisbon, article 15 of Treaty on European Union states that the European Council appoints a full-time president for a two-and-a-half-year term, with the possibility of renewal once. Appointments, as well as the removal of incumbents, require a double majority support in the European Council. On 19 November 2009, the European Council agreed that its first president under the Lisbon Treaty would be Herman Van Rompuy (European People's Party, Belgium). Van Rompuy took office when the
Prime Minister of the Netherlands Minister also has some functions in international affairs, attending the European Council every six months and maintaining bilateral contacts. The Prime Minister's office is a hexagon shaped tower, named "The Little Tower" (Torentje), in the Binnenhof in The Hague. The official residence (which is only used for official functions) is the Catshuis; the last Prime Minister to live in the Catshuis was Dries van Agt. Incumbent Mark Rutte lives in a flat downtown The Hague. The Prime Minister has no security detail. Conventionally, the party with the largest number of seats in the lower house ("Tweede Kamer" – literal translation