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.