Charles Michel to run for EU election, triggering top job scramble

European Council President Charles Michel will run as a candidate for the European parliamentary election in June, he informed three Belgian media retailers. A spokesperson for Michel confirmed the announcement to POLITICO.

Michel plans to take up his seat within the European Parliament mid-July if he’s elected, which means EU leaders must agree rapidly on a successor for his vacated Council put up. In the event that they don’t, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whose nation will take over the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU in July, would lead the conferences — a broker-role usually undertaken by the European Council president.

That state of affairs — an unchecked Orbán ruling the Council roost for the six months immediately after the 2024 European election — is one many of the different 26 leaders of EU international locations could be determined to keep away from, given escalating tensions between them and Orbán, for instance over the Union’s help for Ukraine and Hungary’s rule-of-law infractions.

It’s the primary time a sitting Council president might be a candidate in a European parliamentary election. Michel would usually have stayed on within the job till the top of November, when the brand new Faculty of Commissioners could be put in. Whereas Michel’s transfer is legally kosher, it piles further strain on European leaders, as they normally have extra time for wheeling and dealing in the course of the nice top-job carve up that at all times comes after the five-yearly EU ballots.

After the parliamentary election is held June 6-9 in all 27 of the EU’s international locations, European leaders are scheduled to satisfy on June 17 and once more on June 27-28. It will likely be at these conferences that they’re more likely to search to return to an settlement on a alternative for Michel — although the function of Council chief would usually be one which’s a part of the protracted horse-trading amongst political groupings after the election outcomes change into clear, and as they search to divide amongst themselves the varied high EU jobs.

Michel’s announcement comes simply forward of the primary congress and New 12 months’s reception of his get together, the Belgian liberals of the Reformist Motion (MR). At that congress on Sunday, get together President Georges-Louis Bouchez is predicted to present extra readability on who will lead the cost forward of June 9, when Belgians go to the polls not just for the EU poll, but in addition for regional and nationwide elections, as POLITICO reported on Friday.

Michel wouldn’t specify whether or not his choice to run for a seat within the Parliament means he could be fascinated about different high jobs, similar to turning into the lead candidate for the European liberals, the bloc’s third-largest political camp, for the European Fee presidency, or whether or not he needs to succeed Didier Reynders — who can be from MR — as Belgium’s EU commissioner.