The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, will run in the European Parliament elections on June 9 with the Liberals. He announced this in statements to the newspapers De Standaard, Le Soir and La Libre this Sunday, where he added that he will leave his current position if he is elected MEP.
Michel will maintain the presidency of the European Council until he must collect the minutes, in mid-July, as indicated by the compatibility regime. The former Belgian Prime Minister will campaign at the head of the list of the liberals of the Belgian Reform Movement (MR).
"The European project is facing a crusade and we must promote the legitimacy of democracy. And I want to be part of the team that builds this European project," he told the newspapers.
"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," said Charles Michel, 48, whose term was due to end at the end November 2024.
European procedures provide, in the event of the end of a mandate linked to an "impediment", that the President of the European Council be replaced, until the election of a successor, by the European leader whose country holds the six-month presidency of the Council of the EU. (i.e. leads European meetings at ministerial level).
However, in July it will be Hungarian nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, familiar with anti-EU diatribes, who will take over this position.
Charles Michel, however, considered that it was possible "to modify (these provisions) by a simple majority."
Dutch MEP Sophie in't Veld, from Renew Europe (centrists and liberals), Charles Michel's political family, criticized this departure.
"The captain abandons ship in the middle of a storm. If this is the lack of interest you have in the fate of the European Union, what is your credibility as a candidate?" he said, writing on X (formerly Twitter).
The Belgian was elected in July 2019 to succeed the Polish Donald Tusk as president of the European Council, an institution that brings together the heads of State or Government of the Member States, during the distribution of "senior positions." In this role, he has been responsible for four years for leading the work of EU summits.
The elections to the European Parliament will take place from June 6 to 9, 2024 in the 27 countries of the EU. They will lead to a renewal at the head of the European institutions, including the Commission and the European Council.
The European deputies, who will number 720 at the end of the 2024 elections, are elected by direct universal suffrage for a period of five years.
