Brussels informators Elke Van den Brandt (Groen) and Christophe De Beukelaer (Les Engagés) will receive the representatives of seven parties – MR, PS, Les Engagés, Groen, Open VLD, Vooruit and CD&V – for a plenary meeting on Monday at 15:00.
The meeting will take place after all parties have held consultations. None of them have refused to participate in the general meeting, according to reports by Belga News Agency. The formation of the Brussels Regional Government has been stuck on the same issue for months: PS (French-speaking socialists) refuses to enter into a government with N-VA (right-wing Flemish nationalists) on board.
The informators see a government made up of MR, PS, Les Engagés, Groen, Open VLD, Vooruit and CD&V as the only possible coalition, meaning N-VA would be swapped for Christian Democrats (CD&V) on the Dutch-speaking side.
Over the past three weeks, De Beukelaer and Van den Brandt organised more than 40 bilateral meetings and dialogues, mainly but not exclusively with Brussels' political heavyweights, in addition to a host of informal contacts.
Putting Brussels over party interests
This allowed everyone to express their priorities, listen to those of the other parties and re-establish a form of cooperation, Van den Brandt said. "Parties that had previously been distant from each other came to talk again, which allowed mutual understanding and trust to grow."
The formula involving these seven parties has the advantage of bringing together three political families (socialists PS and Vooruit, liberals MR and Open VLD and Christian democrats Les Engagés and CD&V), and adding Flemish greens Groen.
"This option has a majority in both language groups and in the Brussels Parliament as a whole," Van den Brandt and De Beuckelaer said during a press conference on Friday. "It is only feasible when parties place their responsibility for Brussels above their party interests."
