Herman Van Rompuy
Belgian politician; former Prime Minister of Belgium and first permanent President of the European Council (born 1947)
Herman Achille, Count Van Rompuy (Dutch: [ˈɦɛrmɑɱ vɑn ˈrɔmpœy] ; born 31 October 1947) is a Belgian politician who served as Prime Minister of Belgium from 2008 to 2009, and later as the first permanent president of the European Council from 2009 to 2014.
Van Rompuy, a politician from Belgium's Christian Democratic and Flemish party, served as the 49th prime minister of Belgium from 30 December 2008 until 25 November 2009, when he was succeeded by his predecessor, Yves Leterme. On 19 November 2009, the European Council, which consists of the heads of state or government of the EU member states, selected Van Rompuy as its first full-time President under the Treaty of Lisbon. His term officially began on 1 January 2010 and was set to run until 31 May 2012 On 1 March 2012, he was re-elected for a second and final term, serving from 1 June 2012 to 30 November 2014. In 2019, he was appointed chairman of the board of the College of Europe.
Early life, career and family
Early life
Born in Etterbeek, Brussels, Herman Achille Van Rompuy was the son of Victor Lodewijk Maurits "Vic" van Rompuy (Begijnendijk, 27 February 1923 – Begijnendijk, 14 November 2004), a later Professor of Economics, and wife Germaine Geens (Begijnendijk, 1 December 1921 – Begijnendijk, 23 November 2004), he attended Sint-Jan Berchmanscollege in Brussels until 1965, where Ancient Greek and Latin were his main subjects. During his early teens, he was an avid rock and roll fan, particularly of American singer Elvis Presley.
Later, he studied at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and received a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1968, and a master's degree in applied economics in 1971. From 1972 to 1975, he worked at the Belgian Central Bank.
Between 1980 and 1987, he was a lecturer at the Handelshogeschool Antwerpen (now Lessius University College).
“Herman Van Rompuy” enters the record as belgian politician; former Prime Minister of Belgium and first permanent President of the European Council (born 1947). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Herman, Rompuy and Belgian can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q12983. VIAF identifies the subject as 3756351. The Library of Congress control number is n79103141. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1947, 2008, 2009 and 2014.
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This entry incorporates text from “Herman Van Rompuy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.