Herman Van Rompuy head of the EU's economic & financial committee Odile Renaud-Basso, Luuk van Middelaar, his main speech writer, and Van Rompuy's long standing press officer Dirk De Backer. In 2013 Frans Van Daele retired both as a diplomat and as chief of Staff of Van Rompuy, and was appointed chief of staff to king Philippe. He was succeeded as chief of staff of Herman Van Rompuy by Didier Seeuws. Alongside with José Manuel Barroso Herman Van Rompuy Herman Achille, Count Van Rompuy (, ; born 31 October 1947) is a Belgian politician, who formerly served as Prime Minister of Belgium and
Herman Van Rompuy pay) for this by the Bureau of the European Parliament. In a November 2009 press conference, Van Rompuy related to global governance by stating: "2009 is also the first year of global governance with the establishment of the G20 in the middle of a financial crisis; the climate conference in Copenhagen is another step towards the global management of our planet." Van Rompuy referred to the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009. In or just before the first months of his presidency Van Rompuy visited all EU member states, he also organised an informal meeting of the heads of state