European leaders have chosen Belgian prime minister Herman Van Rompuy as the first president of the EU, with the new foreign affairs post going to Labour peer Baroness Ashton.
Van Rompuy secured the presidency after France and Germany threw their weight behind his bid. Former prime minister Tony Blair dropped out the running just hours before the vote after Gordon Brown said there was not enough support for him among EU leaders. Last night Brown described the new president as a man "with a reputation for integrity and resolve".
He hailed Baroness Ashton's success and said her appointment as the high representative for foreign affairs and security gave Britain a "powerful voice in Europe".
"It will ensure that Britain's voice is very loud and clear. It will ensure that we will remain, as I wanted to be, at the heart of Europe," he said.
Ashton was a government minister for eight years, serving as leader of the House of Lords, before being chosen to replace Lord Mandelson as EU Trade Commissioner in 2008.
She said she was "slightly surprised but... deeply privileged" to be given the role.
"I will make sure I represent our values across the world, and I will endeavour to do in my own way the best that I can," she said.
Her success will be seen as a sign that the Foreign Secretary David Miliband could have won the post had he not chosen to stay in British politics.
The Conservatives welcomed the appointment of the low-profile Van Rompuy as president. Shadow foreign secretary William Hague said: "I am very pleased that those of us across Europe who said that the president should be a chairman, not a chief, have won the argument."
The Lib Dems also welcomed the appointments, saying they would "give lie to the scaremongering of the anti-Europeans over the Lisbon Treaty".
"With low-profile appointees, no-one can take seriously any longer the Eurosceptic deception that these positions would challenge the supremacy of nation states acting together when they agree," foreign affairs spokesman Ed Davey said.
Jose Manuel Barrasso, president of the European Commission, will also be relieved that member states opted for two relatively obscure figures who pose little threat to his authority.
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