Walloon liberal minister Sophie Wilmes is set to become the new Prime Minister of Belgium, making her the first female prime minister in the country. Wilmes will succeed her party colleague Charles Michel as leader of the minority government. Michel will become the new President of the European Council on December 1, succeeding the Pole Donald Tusk.
French-speaking Wilmes (44) has so far been Minister of Budget and Civil Service Affairs. She was previously a local politician in the city of Uccle from 2000 to 2005, and from 2007 to 2014 in another city. In the Belgian national elections of May 2014, she was the first successor in the Brussels electoral district. In October 2014, she entered parliament as the replacement for MP Didier Reynders, who became a minister in the Michel I government at that time.
Wilmes became a minister in 2015. In the 2019 federal elections, Wilmes was re-elected to the Chamber of Representatives. After the European elections in May and the subsequent negotiations over the composition of a new European Commission, it became clear that Belgian Prime Minister Michel could take a senior EU position.
This led the Liberal Party to first negotiate the formation of new regional governments in Flanders, Wallonia, and Brussels, as well as the composition of a new federal (minority) government. Sophie Wilmes will become its prime minister.