An elephant in the room

 Mr. Bart De Wever, the leader of the Flemish nationalists and the biggest winner of Sunday’s general elections in Belgium, met the leaders of all French-speaking parties on Wednesday, as he started his negotiations to form a new Belgian government. He was designated as ‘informateur’ by king Philip on Tuesday noon. For the next days he  will stay out of the spotlights, until he has to report to the king next Tuesday.

 To the joy of all media Mr. De Wever invited the Parti Socialiste as his first guests for coffee and cola light in a meeting room in the House of Parliament on Wednesday morning. Having scolded the biggest French-speaking party as the main problem of the country all over his campaign, it was today a rather frosty reunion with Mr. di Rupo , whom he had not spoken or met since the summer of 2011. The prime minister was accompanied by Mr. Paul Magnette, the mayor of Charleroi and officially the ‘acting party president’ (Mr. di Rupo being the real one). As Mr. Magnette is twenty years younger and a rising star, the journalists made fun about the ‘co-présidents’ of the party (picture: from left to right: De Wever, di Rupo, Magnette)

 Few was said after the one hour meeting, except that Mr. di Rupo claimed that ‘the institutional questions are no longer on the agenda’. The other French-speaking party-presidents later in the day seemed to confirm that Mr. De Wever is putting social and economic questions first and is, at least for the moment, not insisting on measures to bridge – or widen, say some - the gap between Flemish and French-speaking Belgium. But scepticism remained the tone, if only because in the nationalist rituals inside Belgium no French-speaking party president can allow himself to be kind to the Flemish nationalists (and vice versa).

The nationalists tensions inside the country may not have been discussed, they are tindeed he elephant in the room. Mr. Philippe Moureaux, the 75 years old former PS-leader in Brussels (and a longtime old hand of the late Mr. Jean-Luc Dehaene), remarked in an interview on Wednesday how  the south of the country had shifted to the left and the north strongly to the right in the elections.

Mr. De Wever will start the negotiations to form a new Flemish regional government from Thursday onwards. Due to the latest institutional reform of 2012-14, that level will henceforth have more money to spend than the federal government.  Elio di Rupo will, as president of the biggest French-speaking party, start the same process for the Brussels and Walloon regional governments on Friday.

The latter could be seen as a sign that the prime minister wants to prevent the negotiations for regional governments to start a life on their own. Earlier on there was much talk that Mr. Magnette would form the Walloon government and Ms. Laurette Onkelinx, deputy prime minister and head of the party in Brussels, the regional government of the capital city.

Meanwhile the idea that Mr. De Wever would and could form a government without the socialists – and thus provoke the same kind of coalitions on all levels – is gradually abandoned.  Coalitions without the PS have too fragile majorities in Brussels and Wallony. The liberal MR is indeed behaving extremely humble these days not to upset the PS, who could as well go for a more left wing coalition with the Christian Democrats.

In both cases it will become very difficult to form a coherent coalition for the national government with a more or less centre-right majority build around the NVA in Flanders. It is one of the reasons why the reconduction of the six-party-coalition of the three traditional ideologies (liberal, Christian democrats, socialists) is still very much in the cards.

‘So if you make a federal government around the Flemish nationalists, all French-speaking parties are unhappy’, said Mr. Moureaux. ‘If you do again without the NVA, the same feeling will spread all over Flanders. It has simply become almost impossible to make a federal government that is credible in both parts of the country. In the end someone will have to blink.’

The elephant has never been as much present….

 

The hour of the Flemish nationalists

 

The Flemish nationalist party NVA is again the biggest winner of parliamentary and regional elections in Belgium last Sunday. It's leader, Mr. Bart de Wever, has already indicated his willingness to form the next national government and the regional one in Flanders.  But the six parties that governed the country under the leadership of mr. Elio di Rupo for the last two years, did not lose, except for the socialists. They might still go for a second term.

 

Mr. De Wever and his party finally obtained a better result than even the polls had predicted, gaining 4,4 % of the votes in Flanders, and ending up with 33 seats (+6) in the federal parliament of 150. The Lower House has not seen such a strong group for forty years. The second largest group, the Parti socialiste of the prime minister, has now 24 seats (-2).

The other parties of the outgoing coalition kept their seats (Flemish socialists SPA and French-speaking Christian democrats CDH) or gained one (both liberal parties MR and VLD, and the Flemish Christian democrats CDV). The only big loser is the Flemish extreme right and nationalist Vlaams Belang, that lost 9 seats. Ten years ago, in regional elections, it was once the biggest party in Flanders with 24 % of the votes, but its electorate has almost completely been taken over by the NVA.

  Mr. De Wever is now clearly poised to take up the command of the formation of a new Belgian government. In the last days before the polls he for the first time said he was ready to do so ‘if needed’. His mission will be complicated by the fact that Sunday also four new regional parliaments were elected, and governments have to be formed there too. De Wever has indicated his preference for coalitions without the socialists - who have been continuously in the government since 1988. The poll results create some opportunities for such a scenario.

 But as always it will need time an delicate manoeuvring to achieve such combinations. At least the Flemish parties are willing to leave the initiative now totally to Mr. de Wever, some in the obvious hope that he will break his neck along the road. Then a return to the present coalition could be proposed as the inevitable alternative. But there were warnings on Monday that such a scenario would be quite a rebuke of the will of a large part of the Flemish electorate, with the risk of creating still more frustration and instability.

 So Belgium is in for many weeks if not months of negotiations again, although everybody is swearing holy oaths that it should not take 540 days this time. In the meantime European elections went along almost unnoticed. The liberals of Mr. Verhofstadt, the former prime minister who made an excellent personal score, are now the largest group in Belgium with 6 seats (+1). The Christian democrats and socialists ended up with 4 (for both a loss of one). That is as much as the Flemish nationalist (+ 3) who will decide in the next days which group in the new European Parliament they will join.