Sophie Wilmès is running in the EU election and will lead the list of the francophone centrist 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.
