Costa takes office in the European Council with a ceremony next Friday in Brussels

The president-elect of the European Council, António Costa, will officially assume office at the leadership of the institution in a handover ceremony from the current leader, Charles Michel, next Friday in Brussels, it was announced today.
Directed primarily at the staff of the European Council – the institution composed of the heads of Government and State of the European Union (EU) and which defines community political orientations and priorities –, the ceremony will take place on Friday afternoon at the headquarters building, in Brussels, a European source told Lusa today.
On the occasion, the outgoing president of the European Council, Charles Michel, will pass the baton to António Costa, the first Portuguese and the first socialist at the head of the institution, whose two-and-a-half-year term officially begins on December 1, 2024.
Speeches from both are expected.
As for other participants in the ceremony, the presence of the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, is also expected, with whom António Costa maintains a good relationship, contrary to what happened with Charles Michel, with whom many conflicts were reported during five years of mandate.
Community sources heard by Lusa specifically expect a better institutional relationship between the European Council and the European Commission in this new EU institutional cycle that is now beginning. The same is expected with the European Parliament, led by Roberta Metsola.
Especially because, according to the same sources, Ursula von der Leyen, who is supposed to begin her second five-year term at the head of the European executive on December 1, knows António Costa well from the time when he served as head of Government, particularly during the Portuguese presidency of the EU Council in the first semester of 2021, when they became closer.
Today, the president-elect of the European Council promised, in statements to the international press in Brussels, “unity among all” the EU leaders when leading the institution, advocating that no “time is wasted” with written conclusions at high-level meetings, which should instead convey “political messages.”
Two weeks ago, the outgoing president of the European Council, Charles Michel, said he trusts that the former Portuguese prime minister will be a “guardian of unity” among the Member States, as the EU faces economic and geopolitical challenges.
António Costa, who was part of the European Council representing Portugal for eight years (period during which he was prime minister), already knows some of the EU leaders but intends, in his two-and-a-half-year term leading the institution, to find points of convergence for commitments among the 27.
For this reason, before starting his functions, he conducted a tour during the summer and early autumn through the European capitals to meet in person with the heads of Government and State of the EU to better understand their perspectives and priorities for the next institutional cycle in the community space.
He succeeds the Belgian Charles Michel, in office since 2019 and who ends his term on November 30, 2024, in a period marked by crises such as the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union, the covid-19 pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and, more recently, the reigniting of tensions in the Middle East.