Royal mediator Maxime Prévot (Francophone Christian democrats/Les Engagés) is today holding one-to-one talks with the Flemish nationalists of N-VA, the Flemish socialists of Vooruit, the Flemish Christian democrats of CD&V and the Francophone liberals of MR in an attempt to get the talks on the formation of a new Belgian government back on track. Following the failure of formateur Bart De Wever's attempts, Mr Prévot called on the ‘Arizona parties’ to transcend their taboos and press ahead to conclude a ‘dignified compromise’. ‘Our country cannot afford the luxury of a long crisis’ the royal mediator noted.
Mr Prévot, who was appointed by King Filip after N-VA leader Bart De Wever threw in the towel as formateur, is not happy that details from ex-former Bart De Wever's budgetary calculations have been leaked. ‘The leak undoubtedly comes from one of the parties at the negotiating table,’ Mr Prévot says. ‘This puts pressure on trust and complicates the mediation task.’
He believes time is running out for the formation of a new federal government.
‘This is the biggest political disappointment of my life’
Earlier Flemish nationalist leader Bart De Wever voiced his disappoint at the failure of his formation attempt. It foundered on a ‘non’ from Francophone liberal leader Georges-Louis Bouchez (MR) to the introduction of a capital gains tax on shares.
‘This is without doubt the biggest political disappointment of my life,’ Mr De Wever told VRT NWS. ‘When you work day and night for two months and think you are close to an agreement that, after all, is very radical, with socio-economic reforms, a reduction in levies and a way of tackling the deficit - and you have the impression that this is going to succeed. And in the last straight you finally get driven off the tracks, that hits hard.’
Mr De Wever, however, has not packed up his prime ministerial ambitions even though he launched his campaign for a third term as Antwerp mayor on Saturday. Local elections are held across Belgium on 13 October.
N-VA negotiator Jan Jambon also seems confident as Maxime Prévot starts individual talks with party delegations. According to him, there was only one sticking point in Bart De Wever's socio-economic draft agreement. ‘We are going to see what the other parties think. But we worked very hard on that document,’ Mr Jambon said. ‘There was a sticking point that we didn't sort last week. Hopefully this week we will succeed.’