One is a young, dynamic reporter with a blond quiff who roams the world in search of adventure. The other is a greying, diminutive politician with glasses, a penchant for poetry and a love of country life. On the face of it, Belgium's national hero, Tintin, could not be more different from the man who is tipped to be chosen as the EU's first president next week.

Unlike Hergé's boy re­porter, Herman Van Rompuy was virtually unknown outside of Belgium until a few weeks ago when his name began to do the rounds in Brussels as a possible candidate for the newly created post of President of the European Council. Yet the Belgian prime minister is seen by many of his own countrymen as an unsung national hero who has quietly pulled Belgium back from the brink of collapse thanks to his adroit political manoeuvrings, the twinkle in his eye and a generous dose of wry humour.

Short in stature and slight of build, the 62-year-old is a master of understatement who would be the first to admit he stumbled into high office by accident and says he prizes intelligence over hard work. Van Rompuy was drifting towards retirement at the end of 2008, amid a spiralling crisis that threatened to split the country's Flemish and French-speaking communities, and made prime minister at the behest of King Albert II.

He made no secret of his reluctance to take on the near-impossible job of keeping Belgium's brawling politicians from one another's throats over issues ranging from the national budget to immigration. Three prime ministers had come and gone in one year, yet within just a few months, Van Rompuy worked his discreet magic to quell the political flames, switching effortlessly from his Flemish mother-tongue to French to heal the rift between the two language groups.

Belgium's media pour accolades on their saviour, hailing him as a "miracle worker" and "minimalist sage", but he remains a remarkably discreet and private figure. Married with three children, the economist graduated from the venerable University of Leuven. He cut his teeth at the Belgian central bank before embarking on a long parliamentary career.

Yet many Belgians like him best for his quirky passion for haiku, a 17-syllable form of Japanese poetry, which he composes in Flemish. Despite many painstaking efforts by the media to extrapolate political messages from them, Van Rompuy's three-lined compositions are most often mini-odes to nature. His words paint pictures of birds flitting across open skies, or the coastline as a metaphor for inner serenity. "I breathe easy," was a recent last line.

Tellingly, his homepage is mostly devoted to quotes and poems from his favourite writers rather than to politics. Nor does it contain many references to Europe. Although he has opted for a national focus, Van Rompuy says his Jesuit upbringing imbued him with a strong European identity. "When I was a student, the memory of the war was still fresh in everyone's minds. So our teachers organised exchanges with students from other European Jesuit colleges in Europe. That left a deep impression on me because I realised that we were all deep down so very similar," he told Le Vif magazine last year.

Political colleagues also point to his avid interest in the drafting of the European Constitution, which has now been replaced by the Lisbon Treaty. "He saw it as the great adventure of the 20th century," says one. "He wants to see Europe grow and expand beyond its borders."

Belgium's politician-poet has kept characteristically quiet on the question of whether he would like to have the continent's top job, knowing full well that a noisy candidacy would most likely spoil his chances. One political colleague commented: "He knows what he's doing. That's why he's been opening his mouth only to breathe!"

Despite being the current front-runner, Van Rompuy is probably well-prepared for disappointment if European leaders decide to pluck another name out of the hat at their summit on Thursday.