After repeated false starts and breakdowns in talks, the country gets a Flemish-nationalist led coalition.
After more than seven months of negotiations, Belgium has a new government under Bart De Wever. | Olivier Hoslet/EPA-EFE
January 31, 2025 10:10 pm CET
Five parties agreed to form a new Belgian coalition government late Friday, concluding months of negotiations and paving the way for Flemish nationalist Bart De Wever to serve as the country’s next prime minister.
“After seven long months, we finally have a government for the country,” said Conner Rousseau, the president of Vooruit, one of the parties in the new government. Rousseau referenced the deep divisions the parties’ negotiators had bridged. “There will be a lot of fake news and a lot of criticism. But many people will be proud that we’re not afraid to make decisions.”
Negotiators will still have to seek official approval from their parties to cement the deal.
Coalition talks between De Wever’s right-wing New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), the Francophone center-right Reformist Movement (MR), the Francophone centrist Les Engagés, the centrist Christian Democrat and Flemish Party and the center-left Flemish Vooruit party — dubbed the “Arizona” coalition after the colors of the American state’s flag — hit multiple bumps in the road.
Belgium’s June election delivered an unexpected result: In the traditionally left-wing Walloon region in the south of the country, MR emerged the winner. In the Flanders region in the north, De Wever’s N-VA stayed ahead of the far right. It led some to hope that it would be easier than ever to bridge Belgium’s language divides and forge a majority of like-minded parties.
But negotiations repeatedly collapsed over budget disputes, and Belgian King Philippe granted De Wever multiple extensions as he sought to reach a coalition accord. Finally, earlier this month, the king issued De Wever an ultimatum: form a new government by the end of January or face a new election.
Under renewed pressure to do a deal, party negotiators entered the final stretch of talks this Wednesday, racing against the clock to form a new government by Friday.
Negotiators finally struck an agreement after marathon talks in the Royal Military Academy, a stone’s throw from EU institutions on the Schuman square. Initial plans to meet at the Val Duchesse castle — the scene of several past government deals — were abandoned when it transpired that the heating and showers were broken.
The new government will have its work cut out for it, facing a laundry list of tasks left undone during the prolonged negotiation process. During the extended interregnum, Belgium missed several critical deadlines including appointing a European commissioner candidate (which it eventually did) and presenting budget plans to the European Commission by the end of September (a task that still languishes).
Flemish Liberal Prime Minister Alexander De Croo has led a caretaker government in the months since the June election.
De Wever’s right-wing nationalist party claims as one of its missions the independence of Flanders from Belgium, although it’s shifted its approach to one of “confederalism,” whereby a minimal federal state remains in place but its regions get most of its powers.
“A Flemish nationalist who’s moving into Rue de la Loi 16 [the prime minister’s official seat] — who has to represent Belgium … I’d struggle with that,” Jan Peumans, formerly the president of the Flemish parliament and a member of De Wever’s Flemish-nationalist party, told VRT. But, he surmised, maybe “to save Belgium is also, in part, to save Flanders.”
The government formation talks have largely been focused on cutting Belgium’s budget deficit through pension, tax and labor reforms.
But typically Belgian clashes over the representation of Dutch and French language groups could still rear their head in the last remaining Belgian region without a government: Brussels.
Negotiators in the capital region have cut deals within the two language groups, led by the center-right MR on the French-speaking side and the Greens on the Dutch-speaking side, but have not yet cut a deal to govern together. Ahmed Laaouej, the leader of Brussels’ Francophone Socialist Party, has ruled out a governing coalition with De Wever’s Flemish-Nationalist Party, and his suggestions to bypass the usual checks and balances for the representation of Brussels’ Dutch-speaking minority has riled up the party of Belgium’s brand new prime minister.