There’s a profound leadership gap in Europe.

At a time of increasing crisis, commentators are crying out for someone to step up and take the lead in stemming the spread of the euro crisis:

“Investors have little if any confidence in eurozone leaders’ ability to stick together in the face of mounting calamity …” (Wall Street Journal, August 9; emphasis added throughout). “Markets can adjust to a downgrade of global growth, but they cannot cope with a spiraling loss of confidence in leadership and a growing sense that policymakers are disconnected from reality” (Financial Times, August 8). “In a sane world, the German chancellor and the French president would sack their economic advisers who clearly lack an understanding of basic economics or national accounting principles” (EU Observer, August 17). “A poll released Friday indicates Germans know little about the current euro crisis—but are overwhelmingly opposed to the way it is being handled by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the two leaders spearheading efforts to solve the crisis” (Spiegel Online, August 19).

As the European Union fragments into what will ultimately comprise 10 leading nations, the rest enslaved politically—if not in the fullest sense of the word—to one centralizing power (Revelation 17), the leadership gap is becoming most glaring.

Henry Kissinger during the 1970s famously asked the question, “If I want to call Europe, who do I call?”

EU elites moved to begin solving that dilemma by creating the office of president of the European Council within the Lisbon Treaty/EU constitution ratified in December 2009. Appointments to that presidency are for a period of 2½ years, renewable once. That position is currently held by Belgian Herman Van Rompuy. The European Council comprises all EU member nations’ heads of state. It sets strategy and direction for the European Union.

Yet despite this appointment, the problem of confusion of leadership persists, for the EU now has not one but three presidents who each preside over one of its three main institutions—the EU Council, the EU Commission and the EU Parliament, plus a temporary president of the European Counselors, a position that is rotated every six months among the heads of state of EU member nations.

If the U.S. secretary of state, or any leader of a major nation for that matter, wishes to call on an EU leader who has the singular responsibility to speak and act on Europe’s behalf, just who is it?

Well, up to now it’s been none of the above.

The position has been further complicated by the reality that each of the 27 individual heads of state of the EU nations continues to try and assert his or her own national views separate and distinct from those which are EU policy.

So, not only did Henry Kissinger’s question still remain following the creation of the position of permanent European Council president, the situation became even more confusing. Which of the four presidents—presidents of the Council, the Commission or the Parliament, or the rotating president of EU Counselors—would an American head of state call when he sought dialogue with the leadership of Europe? And would any of them necessarily have the power to speak on behalf of all 27 member nations?

Well, courtesy of the euro crisis, that is all now starting to change. Finally the ground is being laid for one singular EU president to have authority over all others. Here’s how it is being done.

No sooner had the ink dried on the historic deal creating a fiscal and political union out of the eurozone member nations on July 21 when the next phase of European imperialism leaped into focus. Once again, akin to much of what we have observed since Maastricht, this is a Franco-German initiative, with the emphasis, as always, on German.

The deal involves adding significant power to the office of permanent president of the European Council. It could finally settle the matter of just who the man is that any “Henry Kissinger” should call when seeking dialogue with the EU.

Under the deal, the president of the European Council is being granted powers within the eurozone that place him head and shoulders above the presidents of the EU Commission and the EU Parliament and the lackey rotational EU presidency. It will in fact render the latter office redundant in respect of any real influence over the eurozone countries.

It’s yet another instance of France making the bullets and Germany firing them. Immediately following the July 21 agreement, France began “leading a group of EU member states who want Council President Herman Van Rompuy to receive new powers and lead the eurozone at the level of heads of state and government, according to reports in the French daily Le Monde yesterday (August 1). The newspaper said France intended to make a formal proposal to Germany by the end of August, with an EU-level decision to boost Van Rompuy’s powers to follow in the autumn. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is believed to back the appointment” (EurActive, August 2). That proposal met with Merkel’s approval, with the deal being done and announced on August 16.

Most interestingly, EurActive notes that “The eurozone has never had a president at the level of heads of state and government. [S]uch a presidency is not presaged by any EU treaty” (ibid).

Giving the president of the EU Council such power would virtually make him the president presiding over a fiscal and political union comprising the 17 eurozone member countries, being the majority of the 27 EU member nations. As virtual president over the majority of EU member countries this would give the EU Council president’s position great leverage over the remaining minority 10 non-eurozone EU member nations—the power to either force Berlin’s/Brussels’s will on them or possibly even oust them from the core imperial union of 17 eurozone nations.

So Germany, the dominant nation in Europe, in tandem with its lackey France, is set to give, to use Pope Benedict’s words, “real teeth” to a singular powerful office within the European Union from here on. This may well be the office that oversees the whipping into shape of a powerful combine of ultimately 10 leaders (described as “kings” in Revelation 17:16), prophesied to head up this final resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire under one future overarching supreme dictator.

Now let’s dwell for a moment on the power that Berlin/Brussels actually won on July 21, and reinforced on August 16, for here is where it all gets most intriguing in relation to the fulfillment of some extremely powerful Bible prophecies for our time.

Right now we are hearing a lot about the prospect of new tax imposts planned for the EU. Immediately prior to Herman Van Rompuy’s appointment to the position of EU Council president, he leaked his penchant as a “raiser of taxes” at a meeting of the secretive Bilderbergers group (Times, Nov. 17, 2009):

The man tipped to be Europe’s first president is already considering new EU taxes to fund the rising cost of Brussels and the welfare state.Herman Van Rompuy, the Belgian prime minister, broke his silence … at a meeting of the secretive Bilderberg group of top politicians, bankers and businessmen.Mr. Van Rompuy’s contentious remarks were aired privately amid the grand surroundings of the Castle of the Valley of the Duchess near Brussels. The château hosted the talks on the Treaty of Rome in 1957 that launched the European Union.

This all drips with Holy Roman imperial symbolism if one really understands the power of the elite group who have dictated the direction of imperialist European foreign policy since the signing of said Treaty of Rome.

It is even more sobering to those who truly grasp the prophecy of Revelation 18 and its repetitive references to the power of the merchants who collude with the church and state—Rome and Berlin—financially, commercially and industrially. They are the true movers and shakers behind the creation of the EU’s new fiscal and political union.

The Times added that Van Rompuy’s office “released parts of his speech in which he talked of funding social welfare from new green taxes and went on to discuss ‘financing levies at European level’ …. Mr. Van Rompuy added: ‘[T]he possibility of financial levies at European level needs to be seriously reviewed and, for the first time ever, the big countries in the Union are open to this.’” For “the big countries,” substitute the reality: Germany and its lackey France!

EurActive pointed to the fact that, without being yet granted these powers, “Van Rompuy has already taken on such a role in practice, presiding over the July 21 extraordinary eurozone summit which adopted a second bailout package for Greece. France now reportedly wants Van Rompuy to continue playing such a role but with a clear mandate and institutional backing” (op. cit.).

Well, the August 16 agreement between Germany and France sets the mandate and gives the institutional backing to the office of president of the European Council.

But it is German government policy that is the driving force behind the effort for economic governance of the EU, giving it the power to set and impose budgetary and tax rules. Herman Van Rompuy is but the puppet at present in the EC president’s chair who conveniently exhibits a taxation mentality. In the normal course of events he will only hold that job for 2½ years before it falls open for the representative of another eurozone member nation to take it over.

Now this is particularly intriguing when we place the prophecy of Daniel 11:20 into its current-day time perspective, which verse 13 renders in the Authorized King James “after certain years,” but in its corrected version direct from the Hebrew reads “at the end of times.”

Thus, “at the end of times” a “raiser of taxes” is going to come on the scene attached to the “king of the north” (verse 13). Yet this “raiser of taxes” is not going to remain in office very long (verse 20). His office is to be taken over by another described as a “vile person.”

Think on this.

By the end of August the office of president of the European Council will preside over the newly consolidated fiscal and political union in Europe which the best of commentators are agreeing places Germany in the seat of imperial power over all Europe. Though the present incumbent is, conveniently for German policymakers, a declared supporter of raising taxes, he does not innately possess the political power, the majority support, nor the leadership charisma within the EU to be sustained for long in that powerful position. If Van Rompuy fails to effectively use the newly enhanced power of the EC presidency, it just may result in a crisis that demands a much stronger and forceful personality take on the role.

Is the position of president of the European Council being prepared at this moment for a much more powerfully influential personality to take on in the near future? One who will truly assert his position by wearing the crown of Charlemagne, that very symbol which Otto von Habsburg declared was the most potent of unifying symbols within Europe, the crown of the Holy Roman Emperor?

It yet remains for this future king—the “emperor”—to make his move. A powerful office is now being prepared—being given, in the pope’s words, real teeth—for a strong man in Europe. Watch to see who will replace Herman Van Rompuy in that powerfully enhanced role of president of the European Union in time to come. The indications are that the result will powerfully reinforce Germanic power in Europe.