After a week's holiday with his family in southern Germany, royal ‘formator’ Bart De Wever (N-VA) is due to resume his consultations on Monday with a view to forming a new federal majority following the elections on 9 June.
Negotiators from the five parties expected to form the future government coalition – currently dubbed Arizona – left at the end of last week with a wide range of proposals, notably on taxation, the labour market and pensions.
During this week's break, several newspapers highlighted several elements put forward by De Wever, including a review of the personal income tax (IPP) thresholds and the full deductibility of nursery fees for working parents.
In terms of pensions, N-VA would like to do away with some pension schemes (such as the favourable arrangement for civil servants) and adjust Belgium's automatic indexation system (only net instead of gross wages to be indexed in case of high inflation).
On 2 August, the Flemish nationalist was criticised for having proposed dividing the management of Belgium's rail infrastructure between regions, despite previous warnings that this would create chaos for national mobility.
Questions over health budget
What's new: this time, De Wever is expected to resume his bilateral discussions with the negotiators from MR, Les Engagés, Vooruit and CD&V based on budget tables and new figures produced by the administration.
Before this week's break, Les Engagés, Vooruit and the CD&V judged the proposals made by the formator's socio-economic proposal to be insufficiently "balanced".
N-VA leader Bart De Wever leaves after a meeting with the Belgian King, Wednesday 24 July 2024 in Brussels. Credit: Belga / Nicolas Maeterlinck
Flemish socialists Vooruit and centrist parties CD&V and Les Engagés have all expressed a strong desire to preserve the health budget – one of the biggest sectors which N-VA want to make significant savings on.
De Wever will have a busy week to try to move the discussions forward before the next deadline. He is expected to deliver another interim report on negotiations to the Belgian King on Monday 19 August.
Excessive deficit deadline
The five parties in this possible future federal majority all hope to reach an overall agreement by 20 September, with De Wever vying for role of Prime Minister, which would make him the first-ever for the Flemish nationalist to do so.
The September date is significant as it is when Belgium must have communicated its national budget plan to the European Commission, as part of the excessive deficit procedure initiated against the country by the EU executive. The seriousness of this plan will determine whether it is possible to carry out the consolidation efforts over 7 years rather than 4.
In addition to the negotiations at federal level, this week will also see the resumption of negotiations to form a new majority in Flanders. The Flemish negotiators had also granted themselves a week's respite from 3 to 11 August.
