Following negotiations that continued into the early hours of Monday morning, the three parties involved in the talks for the formation of a new Flemish coalition government has reached agreement on the budgetary framework within which they will work. During the coming days the parties will discuss a number of other stumbling blocks. However, now little seems to stand in the way of the formation of a new coalition government made up of the Flemish nationalists (N-VA), the socialists (Vooruit) and the Christian democrats (CD&V).
The formation of a new Flemish Government is now expected before the end of the week. However, this won’t be on time for the man leading the coalition talks and who is almost certain to be the next Flemish Prime Minister Matthias Diependaele (nationalist) to go to the opening of the new parliamentary year in the Flemish Parliament on Monday afternoon with a “September declaration”, a policy statement delivered each year on the 4th Monday in September.
The three parties have now agreed on a set of figures on income for and expenditure by the Flemish government during the forthcoming legislature.
For the time being at least Mr Diependaele is remaining tight-lipped about what exactly has been agreed. He told VRT News that “We have agreed that it won’t make further talks easier is we start giving statements to the press now”.
Speaking early on Monday morning the leader of the Flemish socialists Conner Rousseau told VRT News "We are going to work hard to reach agreement on a number of issues of substance. We hope to have reached a full agreement by the end of the week”.
The leader of the Flemish Christian democrats Sammy Mahdi says that he is pleased that an agreement has been reached. "We won’t be saying anything about figures for now, but everyone knows what we think is important and we are satisfied with the agreement regarding these points”.
One bone of contention that still needs to be resolved is nitrogen emissions policy.
"But I don’t envisage any insurmountable issues there either”, Mr Mahdi said.
No September declaration
Matthias Diependaele should normally have delivered the September declaration to the Flemish Parliament on Monday afternoon. The September Declaration is the Flemish government’s annual policy statement. Mr Diependaele does intend to go to the Flemish parliament on Monday afternoon though. The coalition negotiations will resume at 5pm.