Charles Michel (French: [ʃaʁl miʃɛl]; born 21 December 1975) is a Belgian politician who served as the president of the European Council from 2019 to 2024.

Michel became the minister of development cooperation in 2007 at age thirty-one, and remained in this position until elected the leader of the Francophone liberal Reformist Movement (MR) in February 2011.

[1] At the 2019 federal election shortly afterwards, MR lost a number of seats, although Michel remained in office as interim prime minister during coalition negotiations.

[7] After poor results in the 2009 regional elections, Michel was part of a group demanding the MR leader Didier Reynders resign.

However CD&V also insisted on Marianne Thyssen being appointed as European Commissioner, and Michel's MR refused to allow the two most important political posts to be held by a single party.

Ultimately, the parties agreed to appoint Thyssen as European Commissioner, with an understanding that the prime ministership would go to either MR or OVLD.

The budget allocated to the functioning of the judiciary is also depleted, leading Belgium's highest magistrate to accuse the "logic of economy" of being responsible for a "pathology of the entire judicial system that endangers the rule of law.

The Aegean dispute between Turkey and Greece escalated when Ankara resumed gas exploration in contested areas of the eastern Mediterranean.

[20] On 27 September 2020, Michel expressed deep concern over the escalation of hostilities in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh and called on Armenia and Azerbaijan to immediately halt fighting and progress towards a peaceful resolution.

[21] After French-U.S. and French-Australia relations suffered a period of tension in September 2021 due to fallout from the AUKUS defense pact between the U.S., the United Kingdom, and Australia.

After entering into AUKUS, the Australian government canceled an agreement that it had made with France for the provision of French conventionally powered submarines.

A diplomatic fauxpas known as the "Sofagate" was described as a symbol of the strained working relationship between Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Michel.

[32] In February 2023, Michel met with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in Addis Ababa to normalize EU-Ethiopia relations that had been damaged by the Tigray War.

[33][34] In September 2023, Michel condemned Azerbaijan's offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh and urged the country to immediately stop its military activities and return to dialogue.

[27] Early in the third year of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, roughly 750 days from its start, Michel wrote an op-ed in La Libre in which he advocated for a war-time economy and consequent re-balancing of expenditures.

[42] Simultaneously he proposed a Eurobond approach to the problem at a meeting of the European Council, when its presidency was in the hands of Alexander de Croo.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the couple postponed their wedding, which was supposed to take place in France in August 2020, to avoid quarantine upon return to Belgium.