Six months deadlock

Nothing substantial is to be announced about the still ongoing negotiations to form a new Belgian government. A new celebration might be upcoming these days: it is six months now since the last time that all parties of a potential coalition sat together around the same table.

It was at 3:30 in the morning of Sunday the 29^th of August that Elio di Rupo, the leader of the French-speaking socialists (PS) and at that time ‘preformateur’ in the Belgian government negotiations, had to accept failure to reach an agreement after ten hours of discussions with seven political parties around the same table. Since then no meeting was possible of all Flemish and French-speaking parties that would be willing to go together in the same federal government.

Next Tuesday the present negotiator, outgoing minister of Finance Didier Reynders, is to report at the Palace about his mission that started on February the 2th. He has been seeing many parties, and spoke a lot with the two antagonists, Bart De Wever of the Flemish nationalist NVA, and Elio di Rupo. But it is unclear if he has made any progress, and what coalition he might propose to start negotiations.

Rumours abide, about all kind of scenarios, and even about some slight improvement of the atmosphere in the talks. But the most likely scenario continues to be that negotiations will be prolonged until April, when the caretaking government will have to depose his budgetary homework to the European Council, as an obligation in the new so-called ‘European semester’. If this succeeds – still a big if - then new elections could become possible with a reduced risk of vulneraibility against the vagaries of the financial markets. But please, do not bet on it.



Congratulations

 The Flemish nationalist leader Bart De Wever met with informateur Didier Reynders on Thursday afternoon, after the former had accused the latter of making proposals throught the media but without consulting him. No comments were made afterwards. Reynders mission has been prolonged with another fortnight by King Albert on Wednesday. Progress is not really in sight, and elections are becoming likely for late in spring. On Thursday Belgium seemed to have broken some kind of world record, as the BBC reported:

'Belgians are staging a series of tongue-in-cheek events to mark what many there see as a new record - the world's longest wait for a government.
Belgium has been without a government for 249 days - longer than Iraq - as parties from the Dutch-speaking north and French-speaking south remain split.
To mark the event, 249 people plan to strip naked in Ghent, and there will be free beer and chips in other cities.
Organisers hope the events will boost efforts to break the political impasse.
"We've had enough of political games," Kliment Kostadinov, one of the organisers, told the AFP.
"We must get a government fast and a reform of our institutions that is good for all Belgians."
Johan Vande Lanotte, who resigned recently from the post of king's mediator with the task of ending the crisis, urged Belgium's political leaders not to give up on finding a solution.

 He told Belgian radio that he had achieved agreement on up to 70% of his text but the final step had proved difficult.

"If the gap is so great, the parties should take great steps. That is not easy. Often they don't realise how hard that is. You don't make major reform of the state without enormous pain in your own ranks," Mr Lanotte said.
In a speech later in Ghent, he set out proposals for a Belgian union made up of four separate parts - Dutch-speaking Flanders, French-speaking Wallonia, the capital Brussels and German-speaking areas.
A caretaker government has been running Belgium since last June's elections which failed to produce an outright winner.
Although it took 249 days before Iraq achieved an outline agreement on a government, approval was not forthcoming for another 40 days, and some have questioned whether Belgium has yet broken the dubious record.
But that did not stop dozens of student organisations marking the event under an umbrella group entitled "Not in our name".
Although many of the events, such as stripping and eating chips, appeared light-hearted, organisers insisted they had a serious political message of conserving social security and strengthening solidarity'