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
Reactions to the Panama Papers 2014 due to the "LuxLeaks" tax avoidance scandal (also revealed by the ICIJ), and hoped the extent of the Panama Papers revelations would spur countries to action. In a 2013 letter unearthed by the "Financial Times" to then-president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron said that offshore trusts should not automatically be subject to the same transparency requirements as shell companies. Some analysts suggested that these actions may affect the outcome of the referendum on UK membership of the EU. Alaa Mubarak, son of former president Hosni Mubarak, was cited