Attempts to form Belgian government begin
Belgium’s caretaker government to focus on economic crisis management during the country’s presidency of the EU.
Belgium’s political establishment today began attempts to form a new government in the wake of yesterday’s elections which saw sharply polarised results on either side of the linguistic border.
The Belgian king, Albert II, held separate meetings this afternoon with the leader of the party that won most votes in Flanders, Bart De Wever of the Flemish nationalist party N-VA, and with Elio di Rupo, leader of the francophone socialist party, which scored most strongly in the southern half of the country, Wallonia.
The formation of a government is fraught with difficulty, so it is highly unlikely that a new coalition will be in place by the time that Belgium takes over the presidency of the EU’s Council of Ministers on 1 July. The current caretaker administration will continue in office in the meantime.
On the other hand, the result was so clear cut (by Belgian standards) in both Flanders and Wallonia that there is widespread agreement on who should take the lead in trying to form a government: the N-VA and the socialists.
The N-VA polled almost one in three votes in Flanders and will have 27 seats out of the total 150 in the parliament’s lower house (of which 88 seats are for Flanders). Di Rupo’s Parti Socialiste won 26 seats, having taken an even greater share of the francophone vote. Di Rupo’s hand is further strengthened because the Flemish socialists, the fourth largest in Flanders, polled 13 seats.
The francophone liberals were a distant second behind the socialists and today Didier Reynders, the current finance minister, announced that he would be stepping down as liberal party leader once a new government was formed. On the Flemish side, the liberals also polled badly, behind the N-VA and the Christian Democrats and with the same number of seats as the socialists.
Although there is clarity about who must be in the government, there is less certainty about what the new government’s programme might be.
The extent of the N-VA’s victory means that further constitutional reform will be seen as a sine qua non, with the N-VA seeking to devolve more power from the federal government to the regional governments. So the question is whether and how quickly De Wever and Di Rupo can agree on constitutional changes.
On the eve of the election, Jean de Ruyt, Belgium’s permanent representative to the EU, downplayed the potential consequences, though he told an audience in Brussels on Friday (11 June) that Belgium would not launch any ambitious new initiatives.
It would, instead, work closely with the European Commission and the European Parliament on already existing dossiers, such as legislation on reform of supervision of the financial markets, and would “support” the work of Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council. While the rotating presidency sets the agenda for Council of Ministers meetings, including the monthly meetings of finance ministers, the European Council’s president is meant to set the strategic direction of the EU.
De Ruyt said that Belgium’s EU presidency would particularly concentrate on measures needed to ensure the stability of the euro, saying: “We have to be ready for new possible turmoil.”
Van Rompuy, a former prime minister of Belgium, has already chaired two meetings of a taskforce formed to address how to strengthen economic governance; the taskforce is expected to present a final report on its recommendations in October.
De Ruyt said the presidency would also focus on the Europe 2020 plan, which is designed to boost growth and jobs.
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