José Manuel Barroso's re-election as European Commission President comes as no surprise, although some observers were somewhat taken aback by the margin of his victory.
MEPs voted 382 to 219, with 117 abstentions, to re-appoint him as head of the commission, which means he obtained an absolute majority of votes, when in fact a simple majority would have been enough.
Barroso's re-election made sense; no other political group put forward a candidate and last month's European Parliament elections saw a swing to the centre-right which the commission president belongs to.
Although a number of political groups in the European Parliament, mainly those on the left, had criticised Barroso's record as commission president - many MEPs believed he was slow to react to the global financial crisis and his economic policies were too neo-liberal - the former Portuguese Prime Minister managed to get the combined support of the European People's Party, the Liberals and the Conservatives, and this gave him a healthy majority.
The fact that Barroso - who had the backing of all the EU countries - was elected after the first vote means the EU has one major distraction out of the way. Hopefully, the confirmation of Barroso's commissioners by MEPs, after these are nominated by the member states, as well as the appointment of the European Council's first president and its High Representative for Foreign Policy - if the Lisbon Treaty is approved - will be just as smooth.
Ahead of the vote on his appointment Barroso promised to preserve Europe's social values, protect jobs, help reform the financial sector and consult the European Parliament more often. He also pledged to fight what he called "ugly" nationalism and to appoint commissioners for immigration (good for Malta), climate change, and justice and human rights.
Barroso faces many challenges, most notably leading Europe out of its economic crisis, which, thankfully, is starting to subside. "The first concern of European citizens is unemployment and the economic crisis," he told the press shortly after he was re-elected commission president.
Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, whose country holds the EU presidency, said Barroso's appointment "gives us the stability needed for fully focusing on important challenges such as the economic crisis and climate change".
Some critics have accused Barroso of not really standing for anything, for pandering to the wishes of the large states to secure his re-election and for sounding like a neo-liberal one day and a social democrat the next.
While I think it is true that Barroso is very good at adapting to his audience (not necessarily a bad thing in politics), he has to deal with 26 commissioners and 27 EU leaders coming from the right, centre and left of the political spectrum, all of whom have different political agendas. He also has to deal with a European Parliament which has seven distinct political groups and where no one party has an absolute majority of seats.
The EU, after all, a definite success story, has been built on compromise and consensus and forging common interests. Finding common ground is an essential component of European politics and one cannot expect Barroso to pursue a rigid centre-right agenda just because of his political background.
Having said that, one has to stand for something and have a particular vision for Europe, which is no doubt shaped by one's political beliefs, although such a vision will always be compromised by the realities of how the EU operates.
It is also true that Barroso did not prove to be much of a visionary during his first term of office and that he did seem to have been caught off guard by the global financial crisis.
However, his re-appointment gives him more of an opportunity to put his stamp on the commission, to be his own man - he no longer needs the support of the member states for his re-election - and to ensure that Europe plays an increasingly important global role and makes a real difference to the everyday lives of EU citizens.
Barroso will need to come up with concrete proposals on how to protect and strengthen the EU's single market and will need to balance the need for job creation and protection with that of sound fiscal policies by the member states.
He will also have to be brave enough to say no to the larger member states if they propose policies which are contrary to fundamental EU beliefs and undermine the common European interest.
One also hopes that in his second term in office Barroso will give more importance to tackling the problem of illegal immigration and to getting EU enlargement on track - especially with regards to Turkey where I believe EU credibility is at stake.
Of course, there is only so much the European Commission can achieve, as so much also depends on the political will of the individual member states and the European Parliament, something we sometimes tend to forget.