At last, some kind of government

Outgoing prime minister Guy Verhofstadt (picture) succeeded at last, on Wednesday morning at 1.30 a.m., to form a new government in Belgium, 192 days after the elections of June the 10th. The new coalition of liberals, christian democrats and Walloon socialists, will start as a so-called ‘interim-government’ for three months.

Guy Verhofstadt received Joëlle Milquet, the leader of the Walloon Christian democrats (CDH) on Tuesday evening at his cabinet. Apparently he had succeeded before in convincing the Walloon liberals to lift their veto against the full participation of CDH in the new coalition. It seems Verhofstadt strengthened the position of MR-leader Didier Reynders in the new cabinet, by making him responsible for working out the social and economic policies for the next three years.

Milquet obtained a full minister, something she had not received when she announced her intention to go into opposition on Tuesday morning. The minister will almost certainly be Josly Piette, 64, the retired leader of the Walloon wing of the Christian trade union, the largest union in the country. He will hold the crucial portfolio of Employment Policy.

The five parties agreed that the new cabinet will have 14 ministers and no junior secretaries. The Flemish christian democrats of CD&V will have 4 mandates, the liberals of MR and VLD and the Walloon socialists (PS) each three, and CDH one. N-VA, the Flemish nationalist cartel-partner of CD&V, will stay out of the government, but announced it will give its support.

The Flemish liberal Guy Verhofstadt, who is prime minister since 1999, will stay in office until Easter next year. He should then be succeeded by Yves Leterme, the leader of CD&V. Leterme will now probably hold the portfolio of Institutional Reforms and will play as much a key role in preparing a full-blown government after Easter as Didier Reynders. After Easter he might be succeeded as minister of Institutional Reforms by N-VA-leader Bart De Wever.

There is, remarkably, not yet an official document with the agreements about what the interim-government should do. But on Thursday evening the political parties will hold congresses to see if the rank and file can agree. The government-Verhofstadt III should be sworn in at the royal palace on Friday morning and present itself to the Lower House that afternoon. A vote of confidence is expected on Sunday

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Power struggle in Wallony

The attempt of Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt to start a new cabinet after 191 days without government ran into trouble on Tuesday. A power struggle between the two main Walloon parties, the socialists and the liberals, made compromise almost impossible.

Verhofstadt met the four party presidents of the Flemish Christian democrats and liberals and of the Walloon socialists and liberals on Monday evening. After two hours of discussions it was obvious that one knot still had to be untied. The Walloon socialists demanded that the Walloon Christian democrats should be taken into the new government, officially to make the Walloon postion stronger. The Walloon liberal MR refused precisely a coalition with both the socialists and Christian democrats, fearing it would be marginalized in what it called a ‘left-wing block’.

On Tuesday morning the president of the Walloon Christian democrat CDH, Joëlle Milquet, went to see Verhofstadt. He seems to have informed her about the veto of the MR. Milquet immediately called together the leading figures of her party. Together they decided ‘that it would be more sane to stay out’. Milquet added that she was still prepared to support the new government on some issues, and remained ready to participate in it at some later moment.

` When Milquet and the CDH took their decision, the president of the Walloon socialist PS was still explaining on the radio that he definitely wanted the CDH to be part of the new government. In mid-afternoon the PS repeated this position in an official statement. It asked Verhofstadt ‘to make a last try to put the CDH into the government’. Otherwise ‘the PS would not be able to give its confidence to the new cabinet.’

From Christmas to Easter

King Albert II appointed on Monday afternoon the outgoing prime minister of Belgium Guy Verhofstadt (picture) to form and lead a provisional government until Easter. The government has to take themost urgently needed measures for the country. It will consist of the two liberal parties, the Flemish Christian democrats and the Walloon socialist, at least.

Verhofstadt, who had been sent out by the King two weeks ago – he was leading the former and now caretaking government until then – seemed to have arrived at a dead end last Wednesday. Interminal disputes among all parties were making every quick solution impossible. In the second half of the week the outgoing prime minister had to concentrate on the European summits in Lisbon and Brussels.

But on Sunday evening it was learned that he had invited the presidents of four parties to his official residence in Lambermont Street: Didier Reynders of the Walloon liberals, Bart Somers of the Flemish liberals, Jo Vandeurzen of the Flemish Christian democrats and Elio di Rupo of the Walloon socialists. Cameras registrated that a good meal was served.

The combination was new. It was the outgoing coalition without the Flemish socialist, but with the Flemish Christian democrats. That switch was not a surprise, because the former had repeatedly said they did want heal their wounds in the opposition after their disaster at the polls in June. In Flanders the orange-blue coalition remains in the cards.

The Walloon side was more surprising. PS-president di Rupo had repeatedly said he wanted all Walloon parties to enter the coalition because he wishes to make them all responsible for the grave decisions that will have to be taken about the future of the country. MR-president Reynders had continuously refused to enter into that game, because he feared being put totally into the minority against the three left wing parties in Wallony. Although both continued their bickering over the issue today, they took care not to shut the door for Verhofstadt and his proposal for a coalition.

Together these parties command 91 seats in the Lower House. They need 100 to pursue constitutional reform. But to work out this reform will be the task of Yves Leterme, his predecessor as formateur, Verhofstadt explained in a statement issued after his visit to the king. The outgoing prime minister said he would lead a caretaker government that will handle all urgent matters and will stay in power until March the 23th, Easter Day. The words ‘Provisional Government’ are carefully avoided, as this was the name used in 1830 by the revolutionaries who created Belgium.

Verhofstadt indicated that he would in three months hand over his prime ministership to Yves Leterme, if this one has achieved an agreement for a new coalition for the remaining three years by then. Clearly Leterme and Verhofstadt, the greatest rivals before the elections, have now made their deal.

But for the moment it remains unclear if MR and PS have already fully agreed and if the Walloon Christian democrats will immediately add their 10 seats to the 91 of the coalition or later. If these last mysteries would get solved Tuesday, the government Verhofstadt III might be into power before Christmas.

Still the same

The outgoing prime minister of Belgium, Guy Verhofstadt, seems to have failed in his attempt to form quickly a caretaker government for a few months. He now has to concentrate his ‘information-mission’ on finding a way to start negotiations on constitutional reform.

Guy Verhofstadt, 54, was hailed as the saviour of the country by almost the whole of the Belgian press – in both Flanders and Wallony – the day after King Albert asked him to collect information about ways out of the crisis. All media noted that the christian democrats and their leader Yves Leterme were out, at least for the time being.

Verhofstadt consulted the presidents of all political parties – except for the extreme right Vlaams Belang – and the two assembly presidents on Tuesday and Wednesday. He seems to have proposed to some of them that the outgoing government of socialists and liberals should go before parliament and obtain the confidence. It would then work as a caretaker government, taking the most urgent budgetary and legal measures, for a few months. He did not mention if he would lead this government, but most of his guests assumed he would.

The proposal received mixed reactions. The Flemish socialists (SP.A) refused to play in that scenario, fearing it could still ultimately lead to an orange-blue coalition they surely did not want to give a helping hand. Their Walloon counterpart of the PS demanded an effective new government, consisting of all traditional parties: the liberals, Christian democrats and socialists. It could then push trough a reform of the constitution. Finally CD&V, the party of Leterme, vetoed the scenario as well.

Verhofstadt, who met Leterme on Wednesday evening in the well-known restaurant of the hostellerie Kemmelberg in Western-Flanders province(picture), is now obliged to find a procedure to discuss that constitutional reform and probably also a government that is sure a two third majority in parliament. All party leaders seem more and more to accept these two ideas. Previous scenario’s about a constitutional convention have meanwhile been abandoned.

But before constitutional reform can become reality, some other options will have to be decided. One is the question if the Walloon Christian democrats (CDH) should still be part of an enlarged government. MR-president Reynders now wants to keep them out, because he blames their president, Joëlle Milquet, for the failure of orange-blue. But the Walloon socialist leader Elio di Rupo has already said that he will not enter a government without the CDH.

The second question is who will lead this government. Yves Leterme said on Saturday he was still a candidate. But so are probably Didier Reynders, maybe Elio di Rupo, and – back again – Guy Verhofstadt.

Enter the prime minister

The outgoing prime minister of Belgium, Guy Verhofstadt (picture), started Tuesday his consultations to seek a way out of the political crisis. In an unusual step king Albert asked him to do so the evening before.

Verhofstadt, prime minister of Belgium since 1999 and a Flemish liberal, was received by King Albert on Sunday and twice on Monday. The king seems to have consulted Didier Reynders, the president of the Walloon liberals on Saturday evening, shortly after the resignation of the Christian democratic formateur Yves Leterme.

According to some sources the leaders of the Flemish and Walloon liberals, including Verhofstadt and Reynders, met on Sunday evening in the restaurant Clos St-Denis – quoted with two stars in the latest edition of the Guide Michelin – in a village about twenty kilometers to the west of Maastricht. Their aim was to work out a strategy wherein the liberals should take over the initiative from the Flemish Christian democrats.

Verhofstadt seems himself to have hesitated to abandon the low profile he had kept since his election defeat on June the 10th. In his own party some resistance was heard against his return. But on Monday at 6 p.m. the palace issued a statement in which it said it ‘had asked prime minister Verhofstadt to inform the king on short notice how the present deadlock can be broken and to contact the necessary people to do so.’

Verhofstadt himself then read a statement to the press at 6.40 p.m. in the entrance hall of his cabinet. In it he said his mission was ‘ very temporary and limited’. His main task was ‘to start a process of constitutional reform’ and to ‘seek an outcome for some urgent issues’ in the economic field.

On Tuesday Verhofstadt met with the two assembly presidents, Herman Van Rompuy and Armand Dedecker, who have not been relieved of their mission by the King. He also consulted a series of party presidents.

Seconds from disaster (part two)

Formateur Yves Leterme (picture: belga press agency) has made this evening what seems to be his last proposal of a procedure for constitutional reforms to the four parties of a possible orange-blue coalition. He wants an answer tomorrow in the morning. Leterme held the whole week long discreet negotiatons with his potential coalition partners, the Flemish and Walloon Christian democrats and liberals. He wanted to break the new deadlock that had arisen after the nationalist N-VA (allied in a cartel with the Flemish Christian democrats of Letermes own CD&V) had rejected another proposal for constitutional reform on Monday evening. The four party presidents and Leterme had a long meeting in the night from Wednesday to Thursday. This morning they were together again since 11:30 a.m. in one of the meeting rooms of the federal parliament. The two assembly presidents, Herman Van Rompuy and Armand De Decker, joined them. The atmosphere was said to be tense. The meeting broke up shortly before 6 p.m. Leterme issued a written statement. It soon became clear that the formateur, to satisfy the N-VA, had added three questions to his rejected proposal from last weekend. The first asked if all subjects were open for discussion inside the Convention and its Bureau that will have to prepare constitutional reform inside the parliament. In his second question Leterme asked if the regions should get the competence of introducing fiscal incentives for enterprises themselves instead of the federal government. And in the third one the formateur wanted to know if constitutional reform with a two third majority was enough, or that it should be achieved also by a (legally not necessary) simple majority of votes in each language group in parliament. For all three of the questions it was clear that the two Walloon parties would have the most difficulties to say yes. The third one could indeed be seen as an explicit demand for clarification towards Joëlle Milquet, the president of CDH, if she was ready to risk constitutional reform without the approval of the Walloon socialists of the PS, her coalition partner in the regional governments of Brussels and Wallony. Leterme gave all four parties time until 9 a.m. tomorrow to come up with answers that probably all should be yes. He has played his last card in what is no longer a negotiation, but a final game of political poker.

No landing, no crash

For a few hours on Monday it looked like the orange-blue parties had finally reached an agreement about handling nationalistic issues under a new government. Then the Flemish nationalist N-VA decided that the last proposals of formateur Leterme were not enough. Yves Leterme, the two assembly presidents and the four party presidents of Flemish and Walloon Christian democrats and liberals met again on Sunday evening, in a restaurant in Asse, a Flemish village to the northeast of Brussels. Although afterwards no breakthrough was announced, there apparently was one. Leterme had presented a new detailed text about how to proceed with all nationalistic questions under the next orange-blue government. Some issues that need only a simple majority would be handled swiftly. Other reforms that need a two third majority – and therefore the support of some opposition parties – would be submitted to a parliamentary Convention (see Seconds from disaster). Leterme proposed a ‘menu’ of issues that could be discussed in the Convention. Among these, after long discussions, the possibility to introduce regional fiscal rebates. Not quite the fiscal autonomy the Flemish demanded, but not really the refusal of the Walloons to speak about the subject either. Above all it seemed a deadline was agreed on: constitutional reform would have to be at least partially successful towards the end of 2008. If not, the government agreement would become more or less invalid. If anything, this proposal made clear that an eventual orange-blue coalition will have to debate almost permanently about nationalistic issues, as the thorny issue of the electoral district of Brussels-Hal-Vilvorde will also come back to the government table in a few months. Surprisingly both Walloon parties accepted Letermes scheme on Monday, followed, with only slight hesitation, by the Flemish liberals. The Flemish Christian democrats (CD&V), Letermes party, also nodded yes, although their president, Jo Vandeurzen, conceded it was mostly because party leaders are simply fed up with the never ending negotiations. The formateur himself went to King Albert at noon. All this made the spots turn towards the N-VA, the junior cartel-partner of CD&V, who held its party bureau on Monday evening, hours after the other ones. At the end its party president Bart De Wever (picture) in a somber mood announced that he had made up a list with a few bottlenecks on which he demanded clarifications from the formateur. Tuesday was a day of discreet talks in which everybody took care not to break the furniture. In the evening Leterme met the party presidents again in an unknown place around the parliament. He there seems to have proposed to discuss the budgetary questions again – to broaden the basket of possible compromises - and that meanwhile he would try to find a new way out of the deadlock on the nationalistic issues. But most of the party presidents around the table, clearly fed up with the discussions inside the cartel of CD&V and N-VA, demanded that the nationalistic issues should come first. Leterme accepted. So, after 170 days, come and see for another few weeks. At least.

Seconds from disaster

The landing of the negotiators of the orange-blue coalition has been postponed once again. Negotiations are shrouded in mystery, but the few indiscretions that get through augur ill. Such is the complexity of Belgian government negotiations that 167 days after the elections of June the 10th, two go-betweens – the assembly presidents Herman Van Rompuy (Flemish Christian democrat) and Armand De Decker (Brussels French-speaking liberal) - and an official formateur Yves Leterme are still trying to form a government. The link between the two missions is all but clear, but evidently the three do cooperate with each other. They met on Thursday evening, together with the four party-presidents, on the first floor of a local popular restaurant in Uccle, a quarter in southern Brussels were Armand De Decker lives. They succeeded in keeping the press at bay for a few hours. The aim was to put the final touch on an agreement on constitutional reform and other nationalistic issues, to pave the way at last for the formation of the new government. But although the discussions – and the meal – lasted till half past one, no agreement was obtained. Some of the participants were clearly annoyed the next day about the infinite disputes about text quotes and what they called the hesitations of Leterme. The main antagonism remains the one between the Walloon Christian democrats of CDH, and the Flemish nationalist of N-VA, the cartel partner of the Flemish Christian democrats (CD&V). The latter already agreed to evacuate most issues of constitutional reform to a special Convention of all political parties that will be put up in parliament. But it demanded this week that the next government will try to achieve at least one measure of devolution of a part of the social security. That demand has been vetoed by CDH-president Joëlle Milquet (picture) since the beginning of the negotiations in June. A week ago she seemed ready to make a small step towards devolution of fiscal policy – another taboo for her up to now – but after the new demands of N-VA, she repeated her refusal. Underneath this discussion lies the core of the Belgian crisis. More and more Flemish are fed up with paying huge sums of contributions for social security without seeing results, as the percentage of unemployed everywhere in Wallony and Brussels remains more than twice the number of Flanders, and even much higher than in the north of France. A large part of the Walloon political class fears radical budget cuts after devolution and therefore refuses to talk about it. Meanwhile the two assembly-presidents explained last week that they will set up a Convention of more than 50 prominent Belgian politicians, from federal as well as regional governments and parliaments, to discuss a new institutional framework for Belgium. It is understood that it will have a presidium – maybe all party-presidents – that will do most of the work. But towards the end of the week the main opposition party, the Walloon PS, let it be known that they would not actively participate, but wait for the proposals of an orange-blue coalition and then see. On Sunday it was not known what formateur Leterme would do next. He has not been reporting to the king since more than two weeks now. Quite logically, as he had nothing to report on.

A break before the endgame

Yves Leterme: a welcome break

Negotiators for the orange-blue coalition are taking a break until Monday. Before they left for sometimes far-away destinations, they spinned that they had almost reached a government agreement. Except for the most controversial items. The Flemish Christian democratic formateur Yves Leterme and his fellow-negotiators from four parties (Flemish and Walloon Christian democrats and Flemish and Walloon liberals) left the parliament building at 2 a.m. this morning after another long day of negotiations. A few hours before, at 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday, a spokesman for Leterme had briefed the journalists waiting outside that there would be no general agreement that evening, mainly due to ‘technical reasons’. The formateur himself had raised expectations three days ago by announcing that he would try to reach an overall agreement on the 31st of October, except for the three hottest issues: the budget, the nationalistic themes, and the division of the electoral district of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde (BHV). In the end the the eight and last chapter of so-called ‘less-controversial’ parts of the government agreement has probably developed into an hot issue on its own. The Flemish liberals proposed to put a limit in time to the unemployment benefits (Belgium being the only country in the world were such a limit does not exist). As the other three parties did not want to follow that path, an alternative was put on the table: to raise the benefits in the first few months of unemployment, but to reduce it more rapidly afterwards. Again it seems the greatest objections have been made by the Walloon Christian democrats (CDH) of Joëlle Milquet. Unemployment benefits in Belgium are paid out by the unions, who that way recruit a few hundred thousands members. And as unemployment in Wallony and Brussels is more than twice as large as it is in Flanders, it is also an issue with nationalistic undertones. The gap between north and south created the Flemish demand for decentralizing the employment policies.

In the last hours of the negotiations Wednesday night, another dispute arose about employment policy, again between VLD and CDH. Negotiators of the former party wanted to make interim-employment possible in ministries and government-agencies, but the latter objected to this. The matter remains unsolved. The negotiators now take a break for the long weekend of All Saints Day (November the 1st). Some of them, like the liberals Didier Reynders (Kenya) and Karel De Gucht (Tuscany) travel to places far away from Belgium. Formateur Leterme will continue to have informal contacts to prepare the final round of negotiations early next week. The two Flemish party presidents, Jo Vandeurzen (CD&V) en Bart Somers (VLD), have made the 7th of November a deadline to see clear if there is a will to make compromises on nationalistic issues and BHV (see Raising the stakes)The mood among the negotiators has no doubt improved the last few days, but no one risks a bet on the final success yet.

Raising the stakes

The presidents of the Flemish christian democrat and liberal parties have put what amounts to an ultimatum on the negotiating table for an orange blue coalition. Or haven’t they? While formateur Yves Leterme and the negotiators in the parliament building last week continued to give press conferences about new agreements on different policies for the next government, nationalist tensions were steadily on the rise. First there was the fall-out of the incidents last Monday in three Flemish villages with a Walloon majority in the council (see Preparations for the final clash). The Flemish minister of the Interior Marino Keulen on Wednesday in a debate in the Flemish parliament made clear that the new incidents would not help the three majors concerned in their attempts to have their re-election last year officially confirmed. The power to do so lies in the hands of the minister. Keulen had subjected the nomination procedure to an inquiry into the attempts of the majors in September 2006 not to follow the legally prescribed language procedures – they tried to use French - during the election process for the local councils. The warning of the minister provoked a new angry reaction from FDF-leader Olivier Maingain the next day. He said that he would not accept any compromise on nationalist questions as long as the majors have not been confirmed in their office. Maingains FDF is part of the MR of Didier Reynders. The latter refused to confirm the threat of Maingain, but did not want to condemn it either. On Thursday it became again clear that CDH-president Joëlle Milquet was on a collision course with her Flemish colleagues about more than one question in the negotiations. The liberal party president Bart Somers publicly denounced her tactics and demanded that formateur Leterme should take the nationalist issues back to the table, just to test if all the rest still made sense. He openly criticized Letermes working method as too slow. Somers’ attack on Milquet received more than plain support from Jo Vandeurzen (picture, by Bart Dewael), the party president of CD&V, Letermes party. Vandeurzen said that it should be clear before the 7th of November if negotiations can lead to a compromise about the nationalist questions. If not, his party would stop to use delaying tactics in the commission of the Interior of the Lower House, were a Flemish proposal to split the electoral district of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde has been in discussion since early September. The Flemish MP’s have a majority in the Lower House, large enough to vote the proposal. But they have refrained from using it, as the Walloon parties had indeed threatened that such a one-sided decision would bring the end of all discussions about a new government. The next meeting of the commission is on the 7th of November. Vandeurzens threat, to which Somers adhered on Sunday, no doubt raises the stakes. But as there is, in the worst scenario, a commission vote on the 7th November, and not yet a decision of the plenary assembly of the Lower House, it remains to be seen if the Walloon parties will immediately switch off all lights. Pressure rises, cracks appear, but this could as well be a signal that there is enough hope that at some moment in the next days enough glue will be found to make an orange-blue coalition stick together.

Preparations for the final clash

In the last week negotiators of the orange-blue parties around formateur Yves Leterme added almost a chapter a day to the agreement for the next government. But as the end is nearing, tensions over the final hot issues start inevitably to rise again. To the outside world Leterme and his fellow-negotiators (see the picture, taken in one of the rooms of the parliament building)–with no longer only the party presidents but every day more and more people around the table – present themselves as a well-oiled machine with fresh new ideas for the first centre-right government in Belgium in twenty years. During the last week they wrote five new chapters of the government agreement. But nobody is in doubt that the harder choices still have to be debated: the growing budgetary deficit, health policy and certainly also unemployment. Whereafter the main nationalistic issues – constitutional reform and the division of Brussel-Halle-Vilvoorde, the largest electoral district in the country (see the core of the stalemate) – should be put upon the table. Three incidents in the last few days show that even the rather insignificant progress in the negotiations about these two questions since June the 10th remains extremely fragile. The first incident took place in the middle of last week, but remained a few days hidden for the media. During a meeting of the leaders of the Flemish cartel of the christian democratic and nationalist party (CD&V en N-VA) Bart Dewever, president of the N-VA had a head-on clash with former royal scout Herman Van Rompuy. He attacked the compromise the latter had made on the procedure for negotiations about the nationalistic issues. As Dewever accused Van Rompuy in general of making too much concessions to the Walloons, and the latter felt he was not fully supported by his own party, the ex-scout decided to quit the negotiation team of CD&V. In his typical style, he did not make too much press-noise about this. On Saturday Didier Reynders, the president of the Walloon MR, made some concessions towards the Flemish positions. In an in interview with the Flemish newspaper De Morgen he accepted to discuss about constitutional reform, and took a rather moderate position about the issue of Brussel-Halle-Vilvoorde. Flemish liberals and christian democrats reacted positively, but the N-VA, after an initial hesitation, rejected Reynders’ proposals as ‘nothing new’. More worrying still for the liberal party president was that the Brussels nationalist faction within his own ranks – the FDF of Brussels politician Olivier Maingain – decided to call for extraordinary communal councils in three villages around Brussel, and for discussions in the French language there. The three villages – Linkebeek, Kraainem and Wezenbeek-Oppem - are part of the Flemish region, but have a Walloon majority in their council. Language law forbids the usage of French during the council, and makes all decisions taken after a discussion and vote in that language invalid. The three councils took place on Monday evening. And in each of them a discussion in French was started, with the inevitable shouting and skirmishes between hot-headed Flemish and Walloons as a result. TV-camera’s were as much present as spectators. The most worrying aspect though was political. Few people now doubt that Maingain and his FDF are not really interested in a solution for BHV, as the tensions there have time and again fed their popularity. Rumours say that Yves Leterme wants to see clear in the possibility of a compromise on the nationalistic issues at the beginning of next week. From the first to the fourth of November a break in negotiations has been planned. The sixth of November will be the 149th day without a governement, a new record in Belgian political history.

Land in sight

Go, comrades, and conquer ...

After four months of hesitation, negotiations for an orange-blue coalition are finally getting into full swing. The socialist parties have settled for a new role as his majesty’s federal opposition. Formateur Yves Leterme and the four presidents of the christan democratic and liberal parties reached an agreement on a Justice and Police program for the new coalition shortly before midnight on Monday evening. Again the Walloon Christian democrats of the CDH had taken up more leftish positions than the other three parties, which caused the negotiations to last well into the night (see for an explanation: Is this the real life, is this just fantasy?). In the end the new chapter of the government program still has very much a centre-right content. The possibilities for judges to bring youngsters from 14 years and older who commit grave crimes to adult tribunals, have largely been enhanced. Judges will be allowed in some cases of strong criminality to put limits on procedures for an early release. And the new government wants to build new prison cells for 1500 detainees, and recruit 1350 extra policemen all over the country. On Tuesday afternoon Leterme started negotiations on a new chapter, about health policy. In the morning he had seen the Flemish party presidents, to speak with them for the first time about the nationalistic issues since he was named formateur again. He will do the same with the Walloon party chiefs tomorrow. Tensions have somewhat come down, since Letermes CD&V at least informally accepted the procedure-calendar about constitutional reform as it was written down by royal scout Herman van Rompuy at the end of September. Last weekend Bart De Wever, the president of N-VA, the Flemish nationalist cartel-partner of CD&V, followed the same line in a tv-interview. He said that for the split up of the electoral district of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde – the other big thorny issue where nationalist views of Flemish and Walloons radically oppose each other – propably ‘a spoonful of sugar’ would be needed to make the Walloons accept. His comments were immediately greeted with protests about too much concessions, even from within the ranks of the N-VA itself. But although the nationalist issues remain a hard nut to crack, the general impression is that the four parties have taken the turn into the road towards a new coalition government. Some people now talk about a new cabinet – Leterme-Reynders - around half November. And speculations about who will be minister have started in the newspapers. The surest confirmation of all this came from the socialist parties, who have started to speak strong opposition language. The Flemish socialist minister Frank Vandenbroucke stressed in a newspaper article on Saturday that the Christian democrats of Leterme and the liberals of the VLD had definitely preferred a centre-right policy over the need to achieve constitutional reform. At a congress of his party in Liège on Sunday, Elio di Rupo, the president of the Walloon socialist,(picture) demanded ‘a territorial link’ between Wallony and Brussels. He so implicitly suggested that territorial gains for French-speaking Belgium should be made at the detriment of Flanders. It was the strongest nationalist stuff to be heard at a PS-congress in more than two decades.

Some progress, at last

Yves Leterme (center) with Joëlle Milquet (on his left) and Didier Reynders, at 3.30 a.m. this morning

Two months after their last agreement the orange-blue parties have reached a new compromise about one part of the policies of the next government. But even formateur Yves Leterme conceded that the success of this negotiation was in doubt until the last minute. Leterme and the party presidents of the four christian democratic and liberal parties held a press conference in the parliament-building at 3.30 a.m. on Tuesday morning (picture VRT). They proudly announced that they had negotiated a compromise on the policies of immigration of the next government. The most important changes proposed are that immigrants will henceforth have to wait five years instead of three, before they can obtain the Belgian nationality. In the future a new bride of an immigrant will only obtain the Belgian nationality if her husband can prove that he can finance a decent living for her. The formateur himself said that negotiations had been though and still seemed on the verge of collapsing about midnight Monday. But he also stressed that in the end the agreement reached was not a watered down compromise but the starting point for a clear-cut immigration policy. The uncertainty about the negotiations had been fuelled by a series of incidents during the weekend and on Monday. The Flemish liberal minister of Foreign Affairs Karel De Gucht said in a tv-interview on Sunday that the Flemish christian democrats had made huge concessions on their nationalist program. He publicly said what many observers thought, but the CD&V-bosses were not amused and reacted vehemently. On Saturday two Brussels newspapers – Le Soir and La Libre Belgique – published the text of the non-paper that royal scout Herman Van Rompuy negotiated a week earlier to lie down the procedure of constitutional reform. The fact that the note was leaked to the press, made the orange-blue parties again deep suspicious about a mole in their midst, determined to sabotage every kind of progress in the talks. On top of these incidents came a poisonous verbal exchange between Olivier Maingain, the president of the FDF (the Brussels-nationalist wing of the Walloon liberal MR) and Joëlle Milquet, the president of the Walloon Christian democrat CDH, about the interpretation of Van Rompuy’s non-paper. When the negotiators met each other again on Monday noon, it looked very much that the disputes of August had returned in full swing. Few journalist were ready to bet a dime on Letermes success Many hours later, the atmosphere was cleared up again. Gradually it seems that after 120 days of recriminations the orange-blue parties are beginning to accept that they are doomed to step into the same boot. But don’t bet too fast. The big issues still have to be discussed.

Laying a bridge over troubled water

Yves Leterme has started his second mission as formateur with the utmost caution. Not the least because the agreements his predecessor Herman Van Rompuy seemed to have achieved last weekend, fell apart less than two days later. At least about the form the new formateur has learned the lessons royal scout Van Rompuy teached during the month of his mission. Yves Leterme now keeps an almost absolute silence about his talks and acts, and has moved his office to the parliament building in the centre of Brussels. The building (picture Myriam Lemmens) has so many exits that no media should be able to keep a camera on them all the time. The by far the most popular politician in Flanders has started his second attempt to form a government – the first one failed at the end of August – with an apparently very slow pace. The aim is still to make a coalition of Christian democrats and liberals. Leterme took this week each of the four party presidents apart for a long discussion. And he started some negotiations about less troublesome subjects, like justice and social benefits.

The formateur may have good reasons to be cautious. Newspapers reported he was himself surprised when the king called him to Ciergnon on Saturday evenening to be appointed to make the final steps towards a government. The rumour has up to now not been denied by Leterme himself. Up to Saturday noon everybody believed that Van Rompuy’s mission had ended in failure. But on Sunday and Monday Joëlle Milquet, the president of the Walloon Christian democrats, trumpeted forth that she had an agreement with the scout about her demand that constitutional reforms that needed a two third majority would not be worked out before the start of the government. It was officially on this issue that Leterme had to abandon his first attempt as formateur six weeks ago.

But the other three party presidents were keen to say that no formal agreement was made between Van Rompuy and them, whatever Milquet may have believed. Reading between the lines one could detect that the agreement was probably tacitly accepted, but not formalized during the negotiations. Such remains the delicacy of forming the next Belgian government. Mr. Leterme has to start almost from scratch again. The crisis was Wednesday in its 115th day. The record of the length of a Belgian political crisis – 148 days in 1988 – will almost certainly be broken. There are surely enough fridges in the house of parliament to cool some champagne in expectation of the 6th of November.

Back to July the 15th

Yves Leterme, the strongman of the Flemish christian democrats, has been appointed formateur again by king Albert this evening.

Leterme arrived at the royal castle of Ciergnon at 9.30 pm. One hour later the palace issued an official statement in which it was confirmed that the former chief minister of Flanders was designated to form the new government. The decision of the King was largely expected after royal scout Herman Van Rompuy terminated his mission to breack the deadlock in the negotations earlier in the day. Leterme, who will be 47 next week on Sunday, has already been formateur between July the 15th and August the 24th. Negotiations have not moved much forward since he had to accept the failure of his first mission.

Smoke!Smoke!But is it white?

Good news at last, high up in the Ardennes?

After exactly one month royal scout Herman Van Rompuy has terminated his mission. The official message from the royal palace suggests it was successful. But some doubts remain. Exactly one month after he was sent out, the sixty year old former deputy prime minister Herman Van Rompuy (CD&V) reported for the fifth and last time about his mission to king Albert II. For this he had to travel to the Ardennes-castle in Ciergnon (picture). The 73-year old king has moved to that location to get some of the rest his doctors prescribed him earlier this week. They did so after concluding that the recovery of a fall Albert made three months ago, and of the ensuing surgery, has not been appropriate. The last few days Van Rompuy had turned on the heat on the four parties that should become an orange-blue coalition. He had put a complicated scheme of gradual negotiations on constitutional reform on the table, and besides made clear that whatever the outcome of the discussions, he would quit at the end of the week. That pressure brought for the first time in more than a month the four party presidents (Jo Vandeurzen for CD&V, Bart Somers for VLD, Didier Reynders for MR and Joëlle Milquet for CDH) around the negotiation table. One meeting, on Thursday evening, lasted even till 4 a.m. From indiscretions afterwards it nevertheless appeared that the progress made, if any, was rather scanty. It was therefore a great surprise that the royal palace, after Van Rompuy had left Ciergnon Saturday afternoon, issued a message in which it was said ‘that there are enough elements of convergence to allow the negotiations to be resumed.’ As the only mission of the royal scout one month ago was to break the deadlock in the negotiations, Van Rompuy asked to be relieved of his task. The king abided. The official message that was sent out from Ciergnon at 5:30 pm stated that a new formateur could now be appointed. According to some sources in the early evening, Yves Leterme, who in August preceded Van Rompuy as chief-negotiator, was already en route from his home town Ypres to the Ardennes. But as none of the party leaders concerned were ready to comment the latest developments, the journalists remained puzzled. Some speculated that Van Rompuy had only wanted to keep up the appearances, and offered a poisonous gift to his own party-leader after CD&V had put up the most resistance against his proposals in the last few days. Others thought Van Rompuy would continue to play a leading role in the negotiations that will come. Sunday should bring more information. Although not from Van Rompuy, who wants to remain as silent as during his whole mission.The only message that came out from the scout himself Saturday was that he would not give any interview the next fortnight.

Breakthrough, or the end of the road?

The mission of royal scout Herman Van Rompuy is nearing its end. With a last round of poker he wants to force an ultimate breakthrough.

Van Rompuy spoke more to the public during one hour as a guest lecturer at the University of Ghent Tuesday (picture) morning than during previous 27 days of his mission. But he was careful to avoid any hint about the cards he keeps in his hands.

On Monday the royal scout had reported for the fourth time to king Albert. Afterwards the palace announced that Van Rompuy was going to bring in his final report later in the week.

Up to then it seemed that the scout had made almost no progress since he was sent out on August the 29th. But after the Flemish liberal party president Bart Somers unveiled some inside information about the discussions of the past weeks to his party bureau Monday morning, the press soon got wind of it.

So it was learned that Van Rompuy had put quite a sophisticated scheme of gradual constitutional reform on the table, as a midway to the Flemish demand for a comprehensive reform and the Walloon refusal to speak about it. Flemish party leaders had apparently also made some creative proposals to break the deadlock about the electoral district of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde (BHV).

Also on Monday Didier Reynders, the president of the Walloon liberals, showed some willingness to compromise, by proclaiming that he insisted on a referendum to fix the language border between the bilingual area of Brussels and the unilingual region of Flanders.

With so much indications of what might be a willingness to compromise – although Joelle Milquet of the Walloon Christian democrats again upheld a deafening silence in the choir of creative-thinking – Van Rompuy no longer hesitated. He let his spokesman confirm that he would bring the four party presidents of the orange blue coalition together again for the first time in more than a month, in an ultimate attempt to force a breakthrough.

This will probably happen Wednesday. In the best case the scout will a few days later give in his mission with good news for the king, and pass the file to his successor with the knots untied. In the worst case it will be up to king Albert to do some very creative thinking.

The sound of silence

I hope Mr. Van Rompuy overthere is bringing me some good news at last (King Albert II, on the right)

The moment of truth is nearing for royal scout Herman Van Rompuy. But probably not yet for Belgium.

Monday it will be exactly one month since Herman Van Rompuy’s predecessor Yves Leterme abandoned his attempt to form a new Belgian government. Monday the royal scout will report for the fourth time to King Albert since he started his mission on August the 29^th.

As in the previous weeks Van Rompuy kept an almost complete radio-silence on his discussions with party leaders. What filtered out was that he continued to work on an orange-blue coalition, that he negotiated with Flemish an Walloon delegations apart, and that his efforts still centered on removing the stumbling blocks of nationalistic antagonism.

The only intriguing news this week was a press leak that indicated that Van Rompuy was trying to evacuate the demand, from his own party, for a constitutional reform. For such a reform the new government needs a two third majority in parliament, which the orange-blue coalition would not have.

The scout seems to have tested the idea of a commission of elder statesman from all major parties that would have to make proposals for such a reform. The new government would then start without waiting for the conclusions of the commission. The fact that the proposal was immediately leaked indicated that at least one of the parties was eager to kill it.

Van Rompuy is certainly aware of the fact that his time is running out. His spokesman – a sparingly speaking spokesmen - did not deny that negotiations would go on this weekend. That is usually a sign that the next days could be crucial and will decide if the scout fails of succeeds.

If it is failure that awaits Van Rompuy, Belgium probably still will not break-up immediately. The country itself is remarkably quiet about the crisis. For the moment only foreign correspondents and opinion polls - in Belgium notoriously unreliable - see a steadily rising fever all over the nation.

Among the Belgians themselves many people think that all this seems to prove that modern society can do for many weeks without a proper government. Economists praise the euro, and tell the media that twenty years ago the Belgian franc would already have suffered severe downwards pressures from the currency markets. That big stick to hurry up the politicians is no longer available.

After Van Rompuy the king can still send the Walloon socialist leader Elio di Rupo out to search for an alternative for the orange-blue coalition. If he fails, the conclusion will inevitably be that no government can be set up. But even then, and except for a major incident, the mood in the country will probably not be that heated that leaders of the major Flemish parties will start to demand independence for Flanders. The emergency-brake would then be to call the people back to the polls, with the future of Belgium as the one and only issue.

Orchestrated manoeuvres (2)

Royal scout Herman Van Rompuy was Friday once more invited to push his own party leader Yves Leterme gradually aside. But the latter received unexpected help from an adversary.

Flemish and Walloon newspapers Friday brought the story that both Walloon parties and the Flemish Liberal VLD had Thursday proposed to Van Rompuy that he restarted the negotiations on social-economic issues, as the discussions on the nationalistic issues are getting nowhere.

This rather strange idea – as Van Rompuy does not advance on the heart of the matter, give him new competences on other subjects – was rapidly defused by Jo Vandeurzen, the party president of the Flemish Christian democrats (CD&V). He did not object explicitly, but reminded everybody that Van Rompuy’s task was in the first place to break the deadlock in the negotiations. He added that CD&V would not enter a government where Yves Leterme is not a prime minister.

The proposal to enlarge Van Rompuy’s task was largely seen as another manoeuvre to bring some damage on the position of Leterme, especially from the Walloon parties. On Friday noon the besieged former formateur received unexpected help from the minister of Foreign Affairs in the outgoing government, the Flemish liberal Karel De Gucht (picture belga). He warned the Walloon parties ‘that they should not think that they have a kind of veto-right on Flemish candidates for the function of prime minister’. Asked why he came to the rescue of Leterme, who is a political adversary, De Gucht said: ‘I want to fight him next election as a rival, not as a martyr.’

This new round of Belgian politique politicienne learned in the first place that Van Rompuy’s attempts to bring Flemish and Walloons around the table to discuss their conflict, has got nowhere after more than two weeks.

And again a leading French Christian democrat threw some light on what may be the deeper cause. Jean-Jacques Viseur, a former minister of Finance who is now mayor of Wallony’s largest city Charleroi, said in a speech on Friday that ‘it is not only imprudent, but plainly wrong to keep a great Walloon party or the regional governments out of the negotiations’. He clearly meant the Walloon socialists of the PS.

Anyone who speaks Belgian?

The governor of the National Bank of Belgium, the ever softly speaking Guy Quaden, warned Thursday in an interview with the newspapers De Tijd and l’Echo that the long duration of the political crisis could affect the economy of the country. Only a government can take up the budgetary measures needed this and next year to confront the cost of the graying of the population, he said. And how long can Belgium remain the champion of the European cause, Quaden asked, if it does not succeed in keeping together only two cultures.

The warning was lost in the noise over a typical Belgian political incident. While royal scout Herman Van Rompuy seems to have imposed absolute radio-silence to his negotiation-partners, M. Leterme, the strongman of Van Rompuy’s Flemish christian democratic party CD&V, thought it possible to give a benign interview to Karrewiet, the youth news of the Flemish public broadcast Ketnet (picture).

To illustrate to the kids how compromises can be made however he used the example of an agreement a few years ago whereby Flemish parties accepted the demand from the Walloons to lower taxes on the building of new schools. Some Flemish journalist heard about the story Wednesday before it was broadcasted. They concluded that Leterme, as a gesture of goodwill, was proposing new money to the ever cash-stricken Walloon education department.

Then they called on Walloon politicians for a reaction. As Leterme, who obtained a monster-score in Flanders in the elections on June the 10^th, is very unpopular in Wallony, these reactions were largely negative. ‘M. Leterme is portraying us, Walloons, in front of children as beggars’, said Marie Arena, the Walloon education minister. ‘He should better keep his mouth shut’, pointedly remarked Joëlle Milquet, a christian democrat leader like Leterme, but from the Walloon party.

On Thursday morning the Leterme-incident was front page-news in most of the Walloon newspapers, and the subject of bitter editorials. It learned, once again, that the Belgian dispute is also a matter of misunderstandings through communication in different languages (and probably bad journalism as well). And it proved that the nerves of the Belgian politicians are more and more put to the test.