Charles Michel does not appreciate, but then not at all, the press articles of which he has been the subject in recent days. The President of the European Council decided to retaliate and we saw him, on Wednesday April 12, running from one editorial office to another to make himself heard. In a single day, he multiplied interviews with the Belgian press, from Evening To FreePassing by The standard, Sud Info then the RTL-TVI channel. In the evening, he took part in the Franceinfo program “The fault of Europe”.
Two articles are at the origin of his media counter-offensive. The first, published by Politico on March 23, describes a leader whose taste for travel undermines the quality of his work – bringing together European heads of state and government and helping them to find compromises on subjects as complex as the reform of the market of the electricity, migration or the positioning of the European Union (EU) vis-à-vis China. The second, published on April 9 in The worldexplains why his travel costs have exploded, compared to his predecessors, and insists in particular on his frequent use of private planes, which are as expensive as they are polluting, even when commercial lines would allow him to make the same journeys.
“There is probably an attempt at destabilization or intimidation, which targets me, me on the one hand, and which also targets the Council. I believe that the increased role of the Council and the EU on the international scene may disturb a certain number of actors”he says to Free. To the question of who would benefit from weakening the EU – China, the United States? -, he does not answer.
Succession planned for 2024
Charles Michel, on the other hand, is a little less evasive when he mentions his own case. “There is a bubble in Brussels and people with a lot of ambition”he assures The standard. “I was not born of the last rain”he also confides to the Evening. Before continuing: “I can’t rule out – when I see the coincidence [des articles considérés à charge] –, that some are already campaigning for “top jobs””, these high functions promised to Europeans, in the EU as in other international organizations, while the European elections of May 2024 will reshuffle the cards.
In office since 1is December 2019 and already renewed once, Charles Michel, he will not be able to apply for his succession. At 48, he would see himself continuing in an international function even if, he declares in The standardthe idea that he could join the European Investment Bank “is not based on anything”.
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