In an attempt to make as much progress as possible over the weekend, the negotiators for the Federal Government held formation discussions until early in the morning on Monday, but went home without an agreement.
Negotiators for the so-called 'Arizona' parties (N-VA, Vooruit, CD&V, MR and Les Engagés) had been meeting since 14:00 on Sunday to discuss formator Bart De Wever's (N-VA) much-discussed plans to reform pensions, the labour market and taxes.
Around 05:15 on Monday morning, the talks were over.
They managed to make substantial progress and the measures will be further refined over the next few days to see how an agreement can be reached, one source told Belga News Agency. Another said that progress had been made in terms of the budget, but they have not yet struck the right balance.
Topic by topic, the socio-economic issues will be addressed more in-depth in the coming days.
On Monday however, the negotiators are taking a small break, said CD&V leader Sammy Mahdi on Instagram last night. "We managed to talk and negotiate well. Am going home tired now. Monday will be the first day off in a long while, then we will negotiate again."
