After a meeting lasting one and a half hours King Filip has appointed the leader of the Flemish nationalist party N-VA Bart De Wever to the post of “Preformateur”. This would indicate that Belgium’s Head of State believes that Mr De Wever has made progress as informateur (the person whose job it is to pave the way for coalition talks to start), but that some work still must be done before coalition talks can get under way.
On Wednesday morning it emerged that the Flemish socialist party Vooruit and the Francophone Christian democrat party Les Engagés are not yet ready to enter into federal coalition talks proper.
As preformateur, Mr De Wever will have a bit more leeway than he did as informateur. For instance, he will be able to bring parties together around the table rather than having to meet them individually. Mr De Wever will next report to in two weeks’ time on 10 July.