Federal Government negotiators have met for the first time this year on Thursday, beginning what is hoped to be the final stage of formation talks.
Negotiators from the five parties that make up the 'Arizona' coalition – N-VA, MR, Les Engagés, CD&V and Vooruit – took a three-day break to enjoy New Year celebrations. They returned to the drawing board on Thursday to hammer out the key issues that have held talks up for almost seven months now.
N-VA leader and federal formator Bart De Wever's socio-economic "supernote" is at the crux of divisions. The 130-page document will be discussed at length today and talks will focus on reforms to the labour market, fiscal policy and pensions, competitiveness and the fight against fiscal fraud.
De Wever has reassured the public that an agreement will be reached by the end of the month. This "intensive" phase of negotiations will force a "significant breakthrough," he said on Wednesday. This is the first time a hard deadline has been set.
'The best bad idea we have'
The supernote is now past any major amendments. However, Vooruit (the only leftwing Arizona partner) provoked frustration after submitting 500 comments to a version of the document circulated by De Wever.
The Flemish socialists said that none of the feedback was new, and the note mainly opposes putting financial burdens on ordinary people while pushing for more taxation to be applied to the super-rich.
De Wever says that the budget cuts under scrutiny are "necessary".
Vooruit's Conner Rousseau talks to the press after a meeting with the Belgian King, Friday 23 August 2024 in Brussels. Credit: Belga / Nicolas Maeterlinck
"We need to save €20 billion [...] People will have to work longer, labour law will have to be more flexible, pension entitlements will be harder to build up than before," he told Gazet Van Antwerpen.
"All this will seem very unfair to those who remember the life that baby-boomers were able to lead. But unfortunately, there is no other solution," the N-VA leader added.
Despite openly admitting that he would prefer to remain mayor of Antwerp than head the Arizona coalition as Prime Minister, he said the coalition is "the best bad idea we have."
