While the other regions and the language communities have long since had new coalition governments in place and Belgium now also has a new federal government, the coalition talks in the Brussels-Capital Region have been at an impasse for many weeks now.
Francophone liberal David Leisterh makes another attempt to try and get the regional coalition talks in Brussels back on track
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In Brussels each of the two language communities (French- and Dutch-speaking) negotiates a coalition agreement first before they enter talks with the other language group on what will be the final coalition agreement. While the Dutch-speaking parties have reached an agreement on who will be in the next regional government and in the cabinet of the Flemish Community Commission (VCG), the talks among the Francophone parties are in gridlock.
In an effort to get things moving again the head of largest Francophone party in the regional parliament, the Francophone liberal David Leisterh, has invited all parties with the exception of those of the far-left, the far-right and Team Fouad Ahidar for talks.
This includes the four Dutch-speaking parties (the greens, the Flemish nationalists, the liberals and the socialists) that already have agreed to enter a new coalition and the Christian democrat party CD&V. Each party will be expected to give a clear “yes” or “no” to the question of whether or not they are prepared to enter a new regional coalition government.
It would appear that Mr Leisterh is hoping that by doing this the leader of the Francophone socialist group Ahmed Laaouej will be able to hear for himself that CD&V doesn’t wish to enter a new regional coalition. Mr Laaouej strongly opposes the participation of the Flemish nationalist party N-VA in the Brussels regional government and has in the past suggested that a majority of Dutch-speaking regional MPs could be formed with a coalition of the Flemish socialists, greens and liberals plus CD&V (9 seats out of 17).
While Mr Laaouej refuses to talk to N-VA, Mr Leisterh refuses to talk to Team Foaud Ahidar. This is also the case among several of the Dutch-speaking parties that would be needed to form a majority on both sides of the linguistic divide.
If the Francophone socialists cannot be appeased, Mr Leisterh hopes that the Francophone greens and the Francophone federalists (Défi) might be persuaded to take their place.
Meanwhile, Mr Laaouej has called for a kind of emergency regional government with the MPs voting on the candidature of each minister individually. This could mean that Francophones, who are superior in numbers in the regional parliament would be able prevent an N-VA candidate minister from being able to take office. However, MPs from some other parties and analysts have described this plan as “political science fiction”.
Whether or not Mr Leisterh’s latest initiative is successful remains to be seen.