BRUSSELS (EJP)---European Union leaders choose Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy as the first permanent EU president at an informal summit meeting in Brussels on Thursday.

Before they made the choice, European Socialist leaders, including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, decided to propose the candicacy of British European Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton as future EU Foreign Minister.

This decision paved the way for the 27 EU leaders to select Herman Van Rompuy, a 62-year-old Flemish Christian-Democrat, as EU President.

This happened during a dinner Thursday night in Brussels where the leaders made the decision formal.

At a press conference after his nomination, Van Rompuy, speaking alternately in English, French and his native Dutch , insisted he had not asked to become the first permanent president of the European Council.

"But I accept it with enthusiasm and conviction," he said. He promised to operate a "two-track approach" to his job, prizing unity as the EU's strength, but promoting diversity as its wealth."Every country should emerge victorious from a negotiation," he said, underlining his reputation as a low-profile fixer.

France's president, Nicolas Sarkozy, hailed Van Rompuy as "one of the strongest personalities in European politics".

A British Labour party politician Catherine Ashton, 54, replaced Peter Mandelson as EU trade commissioner last year when he quit the post to become the British trade and industry minister.

She emerged surprised and beaming Thursday night, clutching a bouquet of yellow flowers, to declare she would pursue a strategy of "quiet diplomacy" as Europe's first Foreign Minister.

"That's the style with which I will continue," she said.

European Commission President, José Manuel Barroso, said of Ashton's appointment: "We believe it's so important that Britain remains at the heart of our project."

Brown claimed the Ashton appointment signalled a tremendous achievement for Britain.

Her appointment "gives Britain a powerful voice both within the European council and the commission," the prime minister said. "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."

Diplomats and senior officials had forecast an acrimonious summit and possible failure after Swedish Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, as current chairman of the EU Council, spent a fortnight, failing to construct a deal on the two jobs.

Britain proved to be the biggest sticking point since Brown's insistence on former British Prime Minister Tony Blair for the Van Rompuy job upset the political pact struck by Europe's dominant Christian Democrats and Social Democrats to split the jobs between them.

That meant Blair could not be president since the job had to go to a Christian Democrat.

The logjam was broken Thursday afternoon when Gordon Brown yielded on condition that Britain obtained the foreign policy job in return.