Leaders set to pick EU president

European Union leaders will gather in Brussels later to select their first full-time president and foreign affairs high representative. The heads of the 27 EU member nations are divided over which candidates to choose, and after-dinner negotiations are expected to last into the night.

Former UK prime minister Tony Blair had been an early favourite for president. But France and Germany look set to back a less prominent figure, the Belgian Prime Minister Herman van Rompuy.