While withholding judgement on the two key picks, i'd posit the choices as a missed opportunity for the EU. And echoing Fran, it will take much to convince me that the UK, outside of Schengen and the Euro, should have been given such a supposedly key position.

I can understand since the EPP is in power, that a minor conservative xtian gets the role, but i don't get the foreign policy choice at all, except if it was to lessen the position.  Chairman of the board of her kid's private school?

What needs immediate research is her positions as Trade Commissioner. How does studying economics in the 80's give one credibility for understanding what's happening today, now that the Chicago School has destroyed the global economy? But what did she actually do? Who pulls her regal strings, the dear baroness.

Convince me that it's not a missed opportunity, please.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin