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European Council President Charles Michel has announced he will run in EU-wide elections in June, which if elected would force him to step down early from his current post and could give Hungarian Viktor Orbán more influence .
Michel said in an interview with three Belgian media outlets on Saturday that he intends to run as the lead candidate of his liberal Reformist Movement party when EU elections are held between June 6 and 9.
“I want to serve where I am useful and I think I can be useful at the European level,” he told Le Soir, De Standaard and La Libre.
If elected, he will have to resign before being sworn in as a member of the European Parliament on July 16, the former Belgian prime minister said.
His announcement suggests that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán could gain greater influence over EU policy.
The governments of the 27 EU member states “have to decide when my successor takes office,” said Michel. If no candidate is found quickly, member states could vote to allow Hungary, which then holds the rotating presidency of EU Council meetings, to hold the presidency until a replacement is found, Michel added.
This would mean that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán would take on the role of mediator that the Council President normally plays.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (left) at a European Council meeting in Brussels last month. He was a thorn in the side of the EU last year © Olivier Hoslet/EPA-EFE/ShutterstockOrbán has been a stubborn thorn in the side of EU politics over the past year. At a summit of bloc leaders in December, he refused to agree to a four-year, 50 billion euro financial aid package for Ukraine, seen this year as vital to the country's survival in the face of the Russian invasion.
In October he also met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the only EU leader other than Karl Nehammer of Austria to do so since the full-scale invasion began in 2022.
Alberto Alemanno, professor of EU law at HEC Paris Business School, said: “Orbán is ineligible to hold the rotating EU presidency because he has an obvious conflict of interest between violating EU law and… [Hungary] possibly chairman of the council meetings that decide on sanctions [against Hungary].”
The European Commission has withheld more than 30 billion euros in EU funding from Hungary due to rule of law and human rights concerns, while Budapest has increasingly expressed anti-European rhetoric.
In November, the Commission agreed to release an initial disbursement of potentially 10.2 billion euros, which Hungary could now claim thanks to some preliminary reforms.
Michel will be the first incumbent President of the European Council to stand in EU elections. Two former Council Presidents – Herman Van Rompuy and Donald Tusk – subsequently sat as members of the European Parliament. Tusk was appointed Prime Minister of Poland in December.
Michel's announcement will increase pressure on Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, a member of the conservative European People's Party, to reveal her intentions for her future. She is expected to run for a second term.
After previous EU elections, the largest group in Parliament was given the opportunity to appoint the president of the Commission, the EU's executive arm. The role of the Council President, who is responsible for mediating between EU heads of state and government and convening EU summits, remains openly a smaller group.
Both candidates must be approved by a majority of the EU's 27 heads of state and government, and the Commission president also needs Parliament's support.
The latest polls show a clear trend to the right. Predictions from election analyst EU Elects released on December 30 show that the far-right group Identity and Democracy, which includes French nationalist Marine Le Pen, is on track to overtake the liberal group Renew and to become the third largest political group in the European Parliament.