The president of the European Council leaves office to run for parliament elections

2024-01-10 12:15:49

Belgian Carles Michel declared himself a candidate for the European Parliament elections in June and intends to leave office in July, before the end of his term, raising thorny institutional questions.

First modification: 01/10/2024 – 11:15 Last modification: 01/10/2024 – 11:18

2 min

Brussels has started the year with the news that the current president of the European Council, the Belgian Charles Michel, will leave his position next June if he is elected as an MEP in the next elections to the European Parliament.

Charles Michel, 48, made the announcement in front of several Belgian media, including Le Soir and La Libre Belgique: “This means, therefore, that I will carry out my role as President of the European Council until I am sworn in as a member of the European Parliament. , which will take place on July 16.”

The announcement has created surprise, but also discomfort. At the end of June, European leaders are scheduled to choose who will hold the presidency of the European Council, but the term does not end until December. So for a few months it could be Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, who leads the meetings because it is his country’s turn to preside over the Council of the European Union.

Some MEPs and countries have criticized the fact that the reins of the European Council can be left precisely in the hands of Viktor Orban, a Eurosceptic with problems in his country regarding the rule of law.

Under European rules, leaders can prevent Orban from being president by choosing a candidate as early as June. Thus begins the chair dance, in a complicated balance between political forces just 5 months before the elections.

The question is what will be the political cost for Charles Michel, a much criticized leader with a poorly hidden bad relationship with the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and who some sources suggest has thought more about his personal interest than in the common good.

Dutch MEP Sophie in’t Veld, from Renew Europe (centrists and liberals), from Charles Michel’s political family, criticized this departure. “The captain abandons ship in the middle of a storm. If that is the lack of interest he has in the fate of the European Union, what is his credibility as a candidate?” she wrote in X.