A seven and a half month marathon. While the legislative elections took place in June 2024 in Belgium, a government agreement was finally concluded, this Friday, January 31, around the head of the Flemish conservatives, Bart de Wever, to whom the post of Prime Minister should quickly return. It was made after a long discussion session – almost sixty hours – almost uninterrupted between five party presidents, at the Royal Military School in Brussels.
Bart de Wever, a pilot of this arduous negotiation since last summer, had himself set the deadline of January 31 to lead to an agreement, warning that he risked giving up his mission definitively in the event of failure. In extremis, he was received shortly after 10 p.m. by King Philippe, to whom he expressed the agreement between the five partners, according to the Royal Palace.
Whoever has been mayor of Antwerp since 2013 could take an oath as Prime Minister before the sovereign on Monday, according to Belgian media, becoming the first Flemish separatist to lead a government in Belgium. Its party, the neoflamande alliance (N-VA), was only associated with the government, between 2014 and 2018. This time, the N-VA will share power with the French-speaking and committed parties (liberal and centrist) , as well as with the Flemish Christians-Democrats (CD & V) and the Flemish socialists of Vooruit, the only left partner. Together, these five training courses represent 81 of the 150 deputies of the Chamber Elected last June.
It is “the day of truth”, titled the French -speaking daily newspaper on Friday The eveningwhile StandaardFlemish side, noted in one that the president of Vooruit, Conner Rousseau, was confronted at a critical moment and the “most difficult decisions” of his career. The Flemish socialists occupied the most uncomfortable position in this negotiation, faced with a program of socio-economic reforms very criticized by the unions and the French-speaking left rejected in opposition.
The Christian Syndicat ACV-CSC compared the reforms envisaged by Bart de Wever and its partners from the center right to a “catalog of horrors”, containing, among other things, “hardening of access to pension, migration policy, degradation working conditions “.
“Reward work”
As soon as the coalition agreement was announced, environmentalists denounced “a Titanic government ignoring climatic issues”. “Have the negotiators listened to the CAP changes massively required by the citizens in recent days?” Reacted on X the president of the PS (French-speaking), Paul Magnette. A reference to the strong mobilization of unions, in the street since mid-January, in particular against the envisaged reform of special pension plans.
One of the flagship reforms of the future coalition will be the limitation of unemployment benefits to two years. The N-VA and its main French-speaking partner, the reforming movement (MR, Liberal), have continued to repeat want to “reward work” to finance the economy. On the other hand, Bart de Wever managed to coax the Flemish socialists by giving up reforming the inflation wage indexing system, according to elements of the agreement leaked on Friday evening.
For his part, the president of MR Georges-Louis Bouchez, who said he was firmly opposed to any increase in the tax burden, had to let go by accepting the establishment of a 10 % tax on the stock market gains .
The government agreement must still be validated by the five parties, which will bring together their staff this weekend. Like Prime Minister, Bart de Wever, 54, will replace Alexander de Croo who arrived at this position in October 2020. This Flemish liberal, whose party was one of the losers in the June elections, has been for almost eight months in almost eight months the head of a resigning government. A period called “current affairs” which did not reach the 2010-2011 record, when Belgium had lived 541 days in this situation.