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
Prime Minister of Denmark "Council President" (). Carl Christian Hall became the first Prime Minister/Council President to lead a political party (the National Liberal Party). The modern Prime Minister's Office was founded on 1 January 1914, when the Council Presidium was established as a department under the Prime Minister, when it had previously existed as an informal council gathered by the Prime Minister. The title of the Prime Minister changed again in 1918 under the Premiership of Carl Theodor Zahle, becoming titled the "Minister of State" (in-line with its Scandinavian neighbours, Norway and Sweden), which it remains to this day. By the mid-nineteenth century