Yvan Verougstraete, party leader of the Francophone centrists of Les Engagés and the politician now charged with the formation of a new Brussels regional government, plans to try to form a centre-left coalition in Brussels, i.e. without the region’s biggest party, the Francophone liberals of MR. Last week, Verougstraete gave MR leader Georges-Louis Bouchez 10 days to reach a breakthrough in negotiations, but this was not forthcoming.
In a “letter to the People of Brussels,” Verougstraete says he wants to start negotiations with Flemish ecologist Groen, socialist Vooruit and Christian democrat CD&V and Francophone socialist PS, ecologist Ecolo, the Brussels federalists of DéFI and his own centrist Les Engagés, and later also with Flemish liberal Open VLD. According to Verougstraete this is the “most realistic” solution.
The question is whether this will succeed. Groen, Vooruit, and CD&V account for 7 of the 17 seats in the Flemish group. To achieve a majority among the guaranteed number of Flemish lawmakers, as is required by law, Open VLD would have to abandon not only its French-speaking counterpart MR, but also drop Flemish nationalist N-VA. This format gives French-speaking parties, only half of the seats (36 out of 72) in the Francophone group of the Brussels regional parliament.
The proposal has disgruntled Francophone liberal leader Bouchez; Flemish liberal supremo De Gucht has serious doubts the formula can succeed, while Flemish green Van den Brandt has welcomed the initiative as have the Francophone socialists and Brussels democrats and the Flemish socialists. The Flemish Christian democrats have rejected a format without the MR.
Brussels has been without a regional government with full powers since the 9 June 2024 election that brought PM Bart De Wever to power.