On Friday 29 November, the official handover ceremony of the European Council President will take place in Brussels.

From 11.00 on that day, the current President Donald Tusk and President-elect Charles Michel will have a bilateral meeting, after which, at 11.30, both will deliver their handover speeches.

You can follow the ceremony via live-stream here.

Last week, on 20 November, Michel delivered a speech at the University of Amsterdam highlighting some of the key topics for the future of Europe, including fighting climate change, building strong economy and making Europe a confident global leader.

“Today I would like to speak about Europe, our common home. Imagine, for a moment, if Europe did not exist. Who would lead the fight against climate change? Who would defend our rights and freedoms? And more concretely, who would eliminate roaming charges across Europe? And who would ban single-use plastics? Europe does all these things, and much more,” Michel said in his speech, concluding that:

“Little by little, day-by-day, together we can build a Europe of common values, based on common sense, that works for all of us.”

Read the speech in full here.

You can follow Charles Michel and the European Council also on Twitter.