EU leaders have unanimously chosen Poland’s prime minister as president of the European Council, giving a country from the ex-Communist bloc its first European leadership position since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Donald Tusk, who will now chair all EU summits and represent the bloc’s prime minsters in legislative fights, will be joined atop the union’s Brussels-based bureaucracy by Federica Mogherini, the Italian foreign minister who was chosen EU foreign policy chief.
Mr Tusk, the centre-right premier since 2007, had faced some opposition from Europe’s centre-left Socialists and other leaders concerned that his limited language skills – he speaks poor English and no French – would make it hard for him to broker deals among the EU’s 28 leaders, the Council president’s primary job.
David Cameron, the UK prime minister, had also resisted his candidacy last month after the two had fallen out over EU migration issues.That gave…