The lowest threshold

 On Monday 9 March, Sabine Laruelle and Patrick Dewael, the two royal negotiators sent out by king Philip seventeen days ago, are expected to report to the palace what their chances are to form a new federal government for Belgium. They have been trying to get a centre-left coalition over the lowest threshold needed to speak of what seems to be a government. But they have ran into difficulties.

 Since they were appointed on 19 February Dewael and Laruelle have not made one single communication, and tried to stay in the shadow of the corona-turmoil. But there are inevitably news-leaks. These indicate that both have been trying to bring together socialists, liberals, greens and the Flemisch Christian democrats around the table. This would lead to a centre-left coalition with 87 of the 150 seats in the federal parliament.

 To circumvent the many vetoes already expressed during 284 days of failed negotiations, they proposed an ‘emergency cabinet’, whereby the caretaking minority government of acting prime minister Sophie Wilmes (picture) would be joined by the socialists and the greens. The scenario was already as far that the number of ministers for each party had been written down. The emergency claimed could be corona, the budgetary situation, eventually the new migration crisis, anything that would be suitable. A similar ‘emergency cabinet’ was created each time with success after other unworkable election results in 1992 and 2007.

 An attempt to form a centre-left coalition, based on the notion that the previous centre-right cabinet of Charles Michel had been voted down by the voters on 26 May 2019, was already made by Paul Magnette, the new president of the Parti Socialiste, when he was negotiator for the king (‘informateur’) between 5 November and 9 December 2019. He failed, because of disagreements within the Flemish liberal party - rumours had it that he offered the premiership to its president, Gwendolyn Rutten, but that others in the party opposed this, a rumour denied by her and never confirmed by him - and because he only invited the Flemish Christian democrats in a later round of discussions, which the latter took as an offence.

 The low threshold-scenario seems to have ran rapidly into troubles, especially among the Greens who did not want to engage for a government that would initially only agree on a budget for 2020 (with inevitably quite strong cuts). Dewael and Laruelle then choose to depose a quite large note with proposals for a full-fledged government, and bring all parties concerned together tomorrow Sunday. It will however not happen.

 Last Thursday the 5^th of March, Koen Geens, the Flemish Christian democratic minister of Justice and negotiator for the king between 31 January and 14 February, wrote an article on his personal website and took care to draw the attention of the whole press to it. In it the central theme was a plea for a new institutional reform for Belgium, a seventh one after the first six since 1970.

 His arguments were that you anyway need a new procedure for the formation of federal governments, and that the many half-baked compromises on the division of competences from the past should be cleaned-up. With nine federal and regional ministers with competences on Health (and in principle all complementary) holding a press conference on corona earlier this week, he seemed to have a point.

 Geens thus signalled that 1) after his failure of 14 February, he still has ambitions and 2) more explicitly than ever for both himself and his party he wants a reform of the institutions, which was anathema up to now for all other parties except the Flemish nationalists of N-VA. Quite explicit is one phrase in his article: ‘we should only continue to administer together those competences where we (Flemings and French-speaking Belgians) think that it is a plus-value to do so’

 That sounds quite close to the ‘confederalism’ that the N-VA has been advocating. Indeed for a real institutional reform, even one without changes in the constitution, you need a majority in each linguistic group in the parliament, for which on the Flemish side you would need in all thinkable scenario’s in the present federal parliament the support vote of the N-VA (because they have together with the extreme left and right a negative Flemish majority).

 But take care. Although Geens’ party, the CD&V, now led by its new president Joachim Coens, the former CEO of the Port of Zeebruges, has always said it would not enter a federal government without the N-VA, some other iron might be in the fire. Geens’ proposal could as well be the hot potato that the other parties have to swallow to let the Flemish Christian democrats enter into the proposed centre-left coalition. In that case some kind of institutional reform could be started, negotiated and even agreed upon inside the new government, but its execution postponed for after new and early parliamentary elections. Monday we will know probably more.

Briefing: The mathematics of instability

 It is day 277 in the negotiations for the formation of a new Belgian government, or 9 months and three days since the last general elections. To understand why it is so difficult, just watch the composition of the federal Parliament since the elections of 26 May 2019. 

 Between brackets we show the amount of seats each political group in that Parliament lost or gained. Most of the eleven groups involved are either Dutch- or French-speaking, with two exceptions who prefer to stay together across the language border: the Greens (12 elected as French-speaking members, 9 as Flemish) and the Party des Travailleurs Belges (PTB, with 8 French-speaking and 4 Flemish):

Composition of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives, 1 March 2020

Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie (N-VA, Flemish Nationalists)                                 24 (-7)

Ecolo-Groen (Greens)                                                                                      21 (+9)

Parti Socialiste (PS, French-speaking socialists)                                            19 (-4)

Vlaams Belang (Extreme right Flemish nationalists)                                      18 (+15)

Mouvement Réformateur (MR, French-speaking liberals)                              14 (-6)

Christen-Democratisch & Vlaams (CD&V, Flemish Christian democrats     12 (-6)

Parti Travailleurs belges (PTB, extreme left)                                                 12 (+10)

Open VLD (Flemish liberals)                                                                           12 (-2)

Socialistische Partij Anders (SP.A, Flemish socialists)                                   9 (-4)

Centre Démocrate humaniste (CDH, French-speaking Christian democrats)   5 (-4)

Défi (Brussels French-speaking nationalists)         2 (SQ)

Independents        2 (-1)

 The numbers show the electoral earthquake that took place. Extreme left and right together gained 25 seats or a sixth of the total. To find a similar electoral shock in Belgian political history you have to turn to the election of … 1936, when fascist parties (Flemish nationalists and a new French-speaking party, called Rex) and (mainly French-speaking) communists together gained about 17 % of the seats.

The biggest loser in seats on 26 May 2019 was the N-VA, which was the core party of the federal government of Charles Michel between 2014 and 2018 (when the Flemish nationalists left the government in December). Together that four party coalition of N-VA, Flemish Christian democrats and both liberal parties lost 21 seats, or 14 % of the total.

The traditional parties (socialists, Christian democrats and liberals) taken together lost 26 seats. They fall far short (only 33 seats) of a majority of the 89 Flemish MPs (every elected MP has since 1970 to declare his or her language-obedience), and do not reach it either when the 9 Flemish Green MPs would be added (42 of 89). There is a (negative) Flemish majority of both nationalists parties and the 4 elected Flemish MPs of the extreme left. 

 On the French-speaking side the three traditionalist still obtain 38 of the 61 seats. There are now in Flemish Belgium 42 nationalist and in principle Flemish separatist MPs (or 47 % of all Flemish MPs) to the right of the traditional parties, and in French-speaking Belgium 20 green and extreme-left MPs (or 33 % of the total) to their left. Overall in Belgium the three traditionalists obtain only 71 seats, five short of the absolute majority of 76.

 All these numbers explain the difficulty (the picture shows how the repartition has been translated physically into the parliamentary hemicycle: strangely enough the Christian democrats and socialists still sit on the outer wings, putting the radicals right near the centre). Attempts have been made to bring the two biggest parties in each region – N-VA and PS – together as the core of a new government. But this was denounced as too much of a reconduction of the previous centre-right government by the Greens and the PTB in Wallonia, and so the PS dropped the idea two weeks ago.

 The negotiations these days seem to turn around the possibility of bringing together in one or another formula the three traditional parties plus the Greens, all in both language groups. Together they would have 93 seats, but that coalition would be exposed as being in minority among Flemish MPs with both Flemish nationalist groups in the opposition.

 In 1936 the three traditional parties had still enough seats together to sit out the rise of the extremists, in quite difficult circumstances (four governments succeeded each other before new early elections in 1939), but not without some success. This time this scenario is no longer at hand.