In the last stretch to form Belgium's next Federal Government, formator Bart De Wever (N-VA) is presenting negotiators with proposals on institutional matters and the latest rewrite of his "supernote" this weekend.
On day 221 with no Belgian Government, Friday marks "the starting shot for the final leg of the negotiations" towards the coalition agreement, "although it remains to be seen how challenging the road will be," a source told Belga News Agency.
The leaders of the envisaged 'Arizona' parties – N-VA, MR, Les Engagés, Vooruit and CD&V – met all of Thursday afternoon to further consider the remaining sticking points from the chapters not previously covered by De Wever's supernote, such as defence, mobility, asylum.
While these thematic bottlenecks are also on the party leaders' agenda on Friday, so are in-depth explanations from De Wever's team on his rewritten supernote, containing difficult topics such as pensions, taxation and the labour market.
State reform?
Until a few days ago, the negotiators were pouring over the many amendments to the document that had been suggested at the end of 2024. This process of revision fed into an updated text.
However, the federal negotiators are not expected to start talks on the content of the new text right away – a session on institutional matters will take place on Saturday.
While N-VA and De Wever have historically advocated for confederalism – which would assign more powers and competencies to the regions instead of the centralised Federal Government – and an institutional state reform, the discussion on Saturday will "not be exclusively to do with Region and Community affairs."
In November, the party leaders already received an explanation from N-VA's institutional specialist Sander Loones, but they have yet to "really discuss" a possible state reform, Belga News Agency reports.
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N-VA leader Bart De Wever during the traditional new year's reception of Flemish nationalist party N-VA, in Mechelen. Credit: Belga/Jonas Roosens
On Sunday, the focus will shift to the latest version of De Wever's supernote. However, that meeting will not start until late in the afternoon as Christian Democrats CD&V will gather for the party's traditional New Year's reception in Bruges at noon.
With this rewritten supernote on the table, the negotiators are expected to start a final sprint towards a coalition agreement; Belgium's King Philippe gave De Wever until 31 January to form the next government.
In other words, the negotiators will have to keep up a brisk pace towards the finish line. Hopefully, no escape attempts will happen along the way.