Former Belgian PM Sophie Wilmès enters EU election bid

Wilmès replaces European Council President Charles Michel on the Mouvement Réformateur list, after Michel abandoned his short-lived bid.

Former Belgian PM Sophie Wilmès enters EU election bid

Sophie Wilmès is running in the EU election and will lead the list of the francophone party Mouvement Réformateur (MR).

The decision was taken by the party during a meeting on Saturday in Brussels, Le Soir reported.

Wilmès replaces European Council President Charles Michel, who announced his bid to run in the EU election in January but pulled out a short while later in a dramatic U-turn after his candidacy sparked a major backlash.

Wilmès, 49, is a former Belgian prime minister who took over from Michel in 2019 and led the country during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. She then became foreign affairs minister in 2020-2022 but took a step back from politics in 2022 to care for her dying husband.

The MR is part of the liberal Renew Europe group in the European Parliament.

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