Former Portuguese Prime Minister José Manuel Durao Barroso has been formally endorsed as the new President of the European Commission, following a marathon grilling session at the European Parliament.
With 413 in favour and 251 against, Mr Barroso will succeed Romano Prodi in November. There were 44 abstentions and three spoiled ballots.
At a news conference straight after the vote, Mr Barroso said he would aim to build bridges within the EU and set a goal of having eight women commissioners on his team.
Mr Barroso will become the 11th President of the Commission and only the second from outside the six countries that founded the EU.
The vote appeared in the balance when Martin Schultz, the head of the Socialists (the second largest group in the Parliament) said he had urged his members to give the thumbs down to Mr Barroso's nomination. The Socialist MEPs from Malta - John Attard Montalto, Louis Grech and Joseph Muscat - aligned themselves with their group's position and voted against Mr Barroso, a centre-right leader.
He was also opposed by the Greens, the far left and the Euro-sceptics but he had firm support from the centre right groups and liberals.
Prior to the vote, Mr Schultz said that Mr Barroso had failed to fulfil a number of criteria to fill a post as important as European Commission President. Among these were the ability to build a stronger Europe, the power to stand up to the other world powers and the requisites to promote European values.
"People that are voting for you are doing it for all the wrong political reasons," he added, though he admitted that some members of his own group would be endorsing Mr Barroso's candidature.
The PES's decision was seen by many as a snub to the EPP group which on Tuesday voted in Socialist Josep Borrell as head of the European Parliament.
"What an unreliable partner you have chosen," Graham Watson, head of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, told EPP leader Hans-Gert Poettering.
Mr Barroso said he would announce his team in the week starting August 23 and that he would prefer eight of the 24 commissioners to be women.
As from today he said he would be speaking to all the 25 member states to start identifying the new commissioners. Commissioner Joe Borg is to be re-nominated by the Maltese government, though the former Foreign Minister has expressed his wish to change his development aid portfolio.
Asked whether the new member states would be given important portfolios in his commission, Mr Barroso said this would be done according to the nominees' competence and not their nationality.
He said he wanted 24 "super-commissioners", not just one, a comment seen as contradictory to French and German proposals for a super commissioner with an economic portfolio.
One of his main tasks, he said, will be to fight Euro-apathy, adding that he would insist with governments that it was their role to communicate to the people the importance of the European constitution.
Ultimately though, his message of consensus-building was loud and clear. "Left and right are only one dimension of politics. I will work with all of you. I will try to build bridges with everyone, even those that didn't vote for me."
Speaking before the vote, Dr Attard Montalto said a number of MEPs had assumed Mr Barroso to be guilty before he could prove his innocence - especially because of his support for the Iraq war and because he was a centre-right leader.
Dr Attard Montalto urged MEPs to base their vote on three criteria: on Mr Barroso's vision of improving human rights, on his skills to make Europe a major global player and his ability to generate wealth and distribute it socially.
There was a moment of anticipation before the result was announced because Mr Barroso himself was nowhere to be seen in the assembly, prompting Mr Borrell to ask: "Does anybody know where Mr Barroso is?"
Mr Barroso said afterwards he was rushing back to the chamber from an office on the other side of the Parliament's building.