President of the European Council

English: President of the European Council

Background

It's a very diplomatic figure, and it's not like a head of state: the President does not have any power to make decisions about the European Union. The Union has several other presidents, such as the president of the European Parliament and the president of the European Commission. But the President of the European Council, casually but wrongly known as The President of Europe, is the face by which the European Union is known to the rest of the world. The more practical aspects of this task are the responsibility of the High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, the Commissioner responsible for external affairs.

On 2 July 2019, the European Council elected Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel as the successor to Donald Tusk as President of the European Council for the period from 1 December 2019 to 31 May 2022.^[1]