Leader of the Flemish rightwing N-VA party Bart De Wever – whose party won the elections and is therefore leading the Federal Government formation talks – will report to the King on Wednesday afternoon, the Palace announced in a press release.
De Wever will report to the Palace on Wednesday at 15:00 on a first round of exploratory talks with a view to the formation of a new government. Last Monday (the day after the elections), the King sent De Wever into the field to find out which parties were prepared to quickly form a stable coalition.
Almost immediately after De Wever was appointed "informator," he requested a new report from the monitoring committee to draw up the budgetary framework that the next Federal Government will have to work with.
While it remained silent after that, many steps were reportedly being taken behind the scenes. The winners of the elections on the French-speaking side of Belgium, liberals MR and centrists Les Engagés, visited De Wever last week for an exploratory meeting, several sources confirmed to Belga News Agency.
Mirroring the regional governments
De Wever is also in charge of leading the formation of the Flemish Government, and experts are certain his aim is to have the same Flemish parties (socialist Vooruit and centrist CD&V) in both governments.
On the Flemish level, the leaders of Vooruit (Melissa Depraetere) and CD&V (Sammy Mahdi) are expected to meet with De Wever separately on Tuesday afternoon to discuss the so-called "starting note" showing that this Flemish Government would be more social than the previous one – a condition set by Depraetere before talking about joining the government.
All parties are tight-lipped about the content of the conversations they are having, saying that they want to remain discreet in order to give the formations every opportunity.
N-VA chair Bart De Wever. Creidt: Belga/ Nicolas Maeterlinck
The expectation is that De Wever will work federally towards a so-called "Arizona coalition" (with MR and Les Engagés on the French-speaking side, and N-VA, Vooruit and CD&V on the Flemish side). That would then be a reflection government of the regional governments: MR and Les Engagés have agreed to form the Walloon and French Community Government together, and have been negotiating since Monday.
For the first time since last Monday, De Wever has now been summoned to visit the King – indicating that there has been some kind of breakthrough. Still, it seems too early for the real start of the government negotiations, partly because Vooruit has repeatedly shown that it is not keen to become the only left-wing party in a centre-right Federal Government.
Last week, professor of political science (VUB) Dave Sinardet told The Brussels Times that Vooruit will have to show that the next government will be different from the previous one. "That means Vooruit is essential, and it is not so obvious for a socialist party to join an otherwise centre-right government."
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As Vooruit knows they are needed, the party will be able to set key terms for their participation, Sinardet said. "As they would be the only leftist party in the government, Vooruit doesn't want to be accused of implementing the policies of a rightwing coalition; so they will need assurances. They are in a precarious but powerful position, so they will want to make the most of that."
However, it cannot be ruled out that progress will be made relatively quickly after Wednesday; the European Commission will present its budget reports on Wednesday as well. As Belgium's report will not be good, De Wever may use this to urge his intended coalition partners to quickly start Federal Government negotiations.
