Charles Michel’s departure leaves the EU with a problem

Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, has thrown Brussels a curveball. 

The 48-year-old former Belgian prime minister has announced that he will stand as a candidate in the European parliamentary election in June, meaning he will be quitting his current job early. If he’s elected in June, he will take up his seat in July and step down six months before the end of his term. And Michel getting a seat in the European Parliament is almost guaranteed. 

For his long-time critics, the move is evidence that he was never truly committed to his role at the Council. For other EU players, the main concern will be timing: unless Michel is replaced quickly, his premature departure will hand extra power to Hungary’s eurosceptic leader, Viktor Orbán. 

Michel has served as EU council chief since 2019 – a job that involves setting the European Council’s agenda and work schedule, as well as mediating between member states and representing the bloc on the international stage. The role itself has only existed since 2009, when it came into being as part of the EU-reforming Lisbon Treaty. Before the role’s creation, it was the responsibility of the rotating six-month presidency to chair Council meetings. 

Under EU rules, in the absence of a permanent council president, this would again be the case. That will trouble many in Brussels. Because, come July, the leader set to take over as rotating president of the Council of the EU is none other than Victor Orbán. 

Amid an epic standoff between Hungary and Brussels over the bloc’s policy of support for Ukraine, Orbán is hardly the ideal candidate to “mediate” between member states. POLITICO describes the prospect of Orbán chairing leaders’ meetings and assuming the role of interim Council boss as “a nightmare scenario for Brussels”. 

And indeed, a nightmarish one for Kyiv. Orbán has repeatedly been accused of holding European backing for Ukraine hostage over billions of euros of EU funding for Hungary, frozen over a range of rule-of-law disputes. 

The fact that Michel is opening this potential door for Orbán is raising some eyebrows. Alberto Alemanno, a professor of EU law at the College of Europe, described his decision to step down early as “not only self-centred but irresponsible”. 

Critics say the ambitious and still relatively young Michel – who hails from the Belgian francophone liberal party and previously served as the youngest PM in Belgian history at just 38 – is prioritising his own career ambitions over the wider fate of the European Union.

Michel responded to such criticism, insisting there was sufficient time for the Council to find a suitable successor: “There are many tools if there is the political will to avoid Viktor Orbán.”

He may well be right. Even so, as POLITICO points out, his early exit “sends an odd signal about the importance, or lack thereof, of the European Council president’s job.” 

That Michel is abandoning ship early won’t come as a surprise to everyone. In fact, an earlier POLITICO article from March now feels prescient. Following interviews with dozens of diplomats; former and current Council officials; and representatives of national governments within and outside the EU, it concluded the following: 

“The criticism, in a nutshell, is that [Michel] spends too much time on the road and too little time on the core function of his job: preparing and running European Council summits. And with Michel’s second — and last — term coming to a close toward the end of next year, a new complaint is being added: that he’s increasingly focused not on his current job, but rather on the next one.”

While those contributing to such criticism did so anonymously, we can make an educated guess that the outgoing Council chief won’t be sorely missed by the EU’s other top leader, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. 

Michel was often said to be engaged in a “constant battle of egos” with VDL. As one former Senior Council official put it, “Both Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel see themselves as president of Europe.”

The most awkward example of their fraught relationship is perhaps “Sofagate” in 2021, when the two EU leaders held a joint meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Ankara. Michel nabbed the only spare chair available next to the Turkish president, forcing a visibly shocked VDL to retreat on her own to a nearby sofa.

While VDL and Michel’s relationship may be especially spiky, rivalry between the European Council and European Commission presidents isn’t a new issue. We saw it when Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker were in office too. 

Which begs the question, was it a mistake to create the EU council chief role in 2009? Some say it would be more productive to merge the two positions to make EU decision-making more straightforward and to avoid awkward public displays of disunity which weaken the union on the international stage.

In an interview with La Stampa at the weekend, Antonio Tajani, Italy’s foreign minister and the former president of the European Parliament, voiced such a view. “Many agree,” he added. Though he was doubtful that the merging of roles would happen anytime soon. Why so? Too much admin. “The change would involve a revision of the Treaties, which could discourage even starting the discussion.”

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