On Wednesday morning N-VA leader Bart De Wever met with King Philippe to discuss the progress of forming the Federal Government. The King appointed De Wever (N-VA) as "preformator", the Royal Palace announced afterwards.
After a 1.5-hour-long consultation during which De Wever submitted his final report to King Philippe, the N-VA leader left the Palace with a new role in the formation process: preformator.
This role is considered to be between his previous assignment as informator and his likely next appointment as formator of the Federal Government. The change in role indicates that the King recognised that De Wever has made important progress as an informator but that he feels it is still too early to start the formation negotiations proper.
King Philippe (left) and N-VA leader Bart De Wever. Credit: Belga
On Tuesday evening, De Wever delivered the same final report to the leaders of the other parties with which he wants to form a majority: Vooruit, CD&V, MR and Les Engagés.
On Wednesday morning, it became clear that while Flemish socialist Vooruit and French-speaking centrist Les Engagés are both willing to discuss their possible participation in the government, they are not yet prepared to start real formation talks.
Vooruit, for example, only sat around the table with De Wever to discuss the Federal Government once, even though difficult decisions and important steps must still be made before the socialists agree to join an otherwise centre-right government.
The King also believes that the time is not yet ripe to commence formation discussions.
What does a preformator do?
As preformator, De Wever can now operate differently: for example, he will be able to meet with more parties together at one table (instead of receiving them all separately).
If a preformator is appointed (which doesn't always happen but can when the formation negotiations take longer than initially hoped), they are in charge of discussions to draft a coalition agreement with the other party leaders who are open to forming a majority. Once such a draft agreement has been drawn up, the preformator hands over the job to a formator, who sees the agreement through.
In the past, the informator, preformator and formator have usually been different people (a total of 14 different people were appointed in hopes of finding a solution to the difficult puzzle of forming the previous Federal Government in 2020). But it seems that De Wever will assume all three roles this time.
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While nothing is set in stone, experts assume that after the preformator phase the King will also appoint De Wever to lead the real coalition negotiations as formator – who is traditionally the most likely candidate to become Prime Minister.
As one of Belgium's unwritten political rules also states that the Prime Minister should be from the biggest party in the majority and N-VA won the most votes in the country, De Wever – as party leader – is a very likely candidate.
On Wednesday, De Wever accepted this assignment and will report on his new assignment in exactly two weeks, on 10 July.
More information about how the government formation works can be found here.
