Michel, Baron van den Abeele (born 30 April 1942) is a former Director-General of the European Commission, is actually chairman of the board of the Belgian public owned company APETRA and active in several Belgian charities.
He obtained a master's degree in Economics at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB).
From 1996 until 1997 he was Director-General of DG Enterprise Policy, Distributive Trades, Tourism and Cooperatives.
From 2004 to 2007 he was Permanent Representative of the European Commission to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and UNESCO.
Honorary part-time professor at Université Libre de Bruxelles in European financial matters.