Filip, King of Belgians, has given Flemish nationalist leader Bart De Wever (N-VA) more time to build a new Belgian federal coalition government. Mr De Wever is involved in talks with Flemish socialist Vooruit, Flemish Christian democrat CD&V, Francophone liberal MR and Francophone centrist Les Engagés. He is due to report back to the king on 4 November.
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King Filip hands formateur Bart De Wever more time to get the job done (VIDEO)
Colin Clapson
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After his first formation drive failed in August, Mr De Wever was dispatched on the same mission in early September. Immediately, it was clear that he would proceed at a more leisurely pace given the looming local elections and that his efforts would only gather fresh speed after last Sunday’s poll.
As a result, Mr De Wever has not been able to present an image of much progress to the king. But it is not as if nothing at all has happened over the last month. Working groups on asylum, defence and mobility all met. But difficult issues from the so-called super memorandum that Mr De Wever tabled in August and which led to a breakdown in the talks for a while remained outside discussions.
The ‘super memorandum’ contained a lot of measures on the labour market, taxation and pensions, which will form the backbone of the future coalition agreement. A number of parties were in favour of jettisoning the memorandum, but Mr De Wever says there are not a hundred different ways of returning Belgium’s budget to health.
After an initial working lunch yesterday afternoon, the central working group with the party leaders will meet again next week. To get finances in order, the budget requires the green light from parliament before the end of the year. Otherwise some measures will not be able to kick in until a year later.