EU amid geopolitical crisis haggles over top positions
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Van Rompuy brokered the high-level compromises that kept the euro intact, shaping economic policy in Germany’s fiscally disciplined image while later engineering a tiny shift back toward growth promotion once unemployment became entrenched in southern Europe.
"Learning from Herman" is a must, wrote Agata Gostynska, a research fellow at the Centre for European Reform in London. She praised Van Rompuy as an economically moderate consensus builder with a “small ego” who didn’t steal national leaders’ limelight.