Herman Van Rompuy He has another sister, Anita Van Rompuy, who is not politically active, married to Arne van der Graesen. Van Rompuy was the chairman of the national Christian People's Party's (CVP) youth council (1973–1977). From 1975 to 1980 he worked in the ministerial cabinets of and . In 1978 he was elected a member of the national CVP's bureau (1978–present). He first was elected to the Belgian Senate in 1988 and served until 1995. In 1988 he shortly served as Secretary of State for Finance and for Small and Medium Enterprises before becoming the national chairman of the CVP (1988–1993). Van
2014 European Parliament election 17, paragraph 7 of the Treaty on European Union). This provision applied for the first time for the 2014 elections. Nevertheless, senior figures such as European Council president Herman Van Rompuy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and former Commission president Jacques Delors questioned the aspiration of European political parties to link the presidency of the European Commission with the result of the European elections and insisted that the future Commission president has to suit Member States' expectations first. Based on these new provisions, the following European political parties designated candidates for Commission president ahead of the 2014 election: the Party of