2010–2011 Belgian government formation

Following the 2010 Belgian general election, held on 13 June 2010, a process of cabinet formation started in Belgium. Since the election produced a very fragmented political landscape, with the Flemish separatist New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) as the largest party in Flanders and the country as a whole (27 seats out of 150 in the lower Chamber), and the Francophone Socialist Party (PS), the largest in Wallonia (26 seats), cabinet negotiations have continued for a long time. On 17 February 2011, Belgium matched the record for a country without a government, at 249 days, held until then by Iraq, and it broke it the next day.

Background

See also: 2007–2011 Belgian political crisis

Tensions have been rising between the Flemish and Walloons for quite a while, as the Flemish accuse the Walloon region of being dependent on economic subsidies from the Flemish region, as well as reluctance by the Walloons to learn Dutch; while the Walloons accuse the Flemish of being segregationist with language policy in the Flemish region.

The most recent election was fought mainly on the failure to resolve the conflict over the electoral arrondissement of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde. In basic terms, the conflict centered around political and linguistic differences in the arrondissement, with the Flemish desiring to split the arrondissement into two separate areas and the Walloons wanting to keep it together.

Informateur De Wever

Bart De Wever (N-VA) announced he would seek negotiations with the PS. PS leader Elio di Rupo was tipped to become the next Prime Minister, because the "Socialist" parties emerged as the largest "party family" in the elections (39 seats in total), and because the N-VA lacks a Francophone counterpart.

The Belgian king gave Bart De Wever the task of informateur (informer) to smooth the path for the future government. One of the tipped "optimal" coalitions is what is called the "mirror government," a government using the same coalitions that exist in the Flemish (CD&V, N-VA and SP.A) and Walloon (PS, CDH and Ecolo) regions respectively, though in the federal government.

Analysis of "mirror government" approach

This type of coalition gives multiple advantages:

• It not only has a majority in the federal parliament, but also a majority within the Flemish and Francophone language groups. The previous Leterme government was criticised for not having a majority within the Flemish language group after N-VA broke the cartel with CD&V and left the government.
• It has the necessary 2/3 majority needed to enact state reforms, a main point of the N-VA's electoral promise.
• It facilitates cooperation and communication between the federal and regional governments, because the majority and opposition parties are the same on all levels.
• It is formed by only 6 parties, as opposed to other possible coalitions of 7 or 8 parties, which would make a coalition agreement satisfying all coalition partners harder to reach.

It has however several disadvantages:

• This coalition would be composed of social democrats, ecologists, Christian democrats and conservative Flemish separatists, bringing together parties from all sides of the political spectrum. This could potentially cause clashes on specific subjects, especially social-economic policy and state reforms.
• CDH opposes the move to confederalism and other state reforms, while the N-VA and CD&V campaigned on those issues.

Pre-formateur Di Rupo

De Wever reported back to the king on 8 July 2010, suggesting that there was "not enough agreement on key issues" for a coalition to work and was therefore relieved of his duty as informateur. The king was expected to appoint PS leader Elio Di Rupo as formateur. However, on 9 July the king appointed Di Rupo "pre-formateur" instead, a new position stopping short of the traditional prime-minister-in-waiting role of formateur; it was likely intentionally established as a new position as appointing Di Rupo as "explorer" or "deminer" would have reminded voters of the government formation crisis of 2007–2008.

Originally, Di Rupo seemed to be, according to analysts, looking at the possibility of a coalition between the N-VA, CD&V and the SP.a on the Flemish side. However, Di Rupo eventually expanded his consultations to include the heads of the major democratic political parties in order to forge a so-called "dual approach", attempting to create the two-thirds majority needed to enact institutional reforms, especially in the case of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde.

Unfortunately, Di Rupo was unable to reach a consensus between the parties. The N-VA and the CD&V accused the Walloon parties of moving too slowly in negotiations, as well as being too vague and too reserved in the details on the concessions they were willing to make. On 29 July 2010, Di Rupo met with the King to give the sovereign a progress report on negotiations.

Attempted resignation

On 29 August 2010, Di Rupo met with King Albert and submitted his resignation as pre-formateur, releasing a statement to the press suggesting that the N-VA and the CD&V were unwilling to continue negotiations. This comes on the heels of the N-VA and the CD&V's rejection of a potential compromise. The king, however, refused to accept the resignation, asking Di Rupo to continue as pre-formateur in an attempt to reach one final agreement.

In a press conference the next day, Di Rupo explained where the deadlock lay. The parties involved were able to reach an agreement on how much control each region would have on income and spending, but were stuck on the issues of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde and funding for Brussels.

An agreement was not reached, and Di Rupo again asked the King to relieve him of his duties as pre-formateur on 3 September.

Mediators Flahaut and Pieters

Upon Di Rupo's resignation, King Albert entrusted Danny Pieters, N-VA Senator and President of the Belgian Senate and André Flahaut, PS Representative and President of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives to act as mediators in order to revive the negotiating process.

The two mediators met with members of the seven parties and attempted to make some leeway in the stalled negotiations by creating a framework to address concerns brought up in the pre-forming negotiations, something that the PS and the N-VA agreed to work within.

Concurrently, however, tensions began to strain negotiations, with the PS displaying frustration at the state of negotiations and accusing the N-VA of trying to sabotage the process. The N-VA suggested that the PS and the other Walloon parties were merely unwilling to part with the "pocket money federalism", which refers to the distribution of financial means in Belgium where the regional governments are not accountable for their earnings or spendings.

The N-VA exit negotiations

On 4 October, Bart De Wever called a press conference at his party's headquarters, and announced in a bilingual statement, that the N-VA would be pulling out of the current negotiations, calling on all parties involved to start over. "For us, this story ends," he said in his statement, "I refuse to participate in this childish game". He placed blame for the failure of the talks on the Walloon parties, saying "We have got no answers to the vital questions being asked by Flemings". The Walloon parties shot back, saying that they no longer trusted De Wever, and again accused him of trying to deliberately derail negotiations. "After long weeks of negotiations we almost had a deal,” said Laurette Onkelinx from the Parti Socialiste (PS). “What is on the table is a fundamental reform of Belgium and at the last moment Bart De Wever, with tears in his eyes, says ‘no, sorry, but this is not enough'”

The next day, the king dismissed Pieters and Flahaut as mediators.

"Clarificator" De Wever

On 8 October, King Albert gave a "clarification task" to Bart De Wever. He had to try to converge the viewpoints of the negotiating parties in 10 days.

On October 17th, De Wever presented to the parties the first written proposal of the negotiations. Within less than 24 hours it was rejected by the francophone parties (PS, cdH & Ecolo).

Mediator Vande Lanotte

Citizens held a rally urging politicians to form a government in late January 2011.

On 21 October 2010, the King asked Johan Vande Lanotte, a former president of the SP.a (the Flemish socialist party) to be a mediator to resume government formation talks soon. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Yves Leterme's outgoing government was asked by the King to stay on as a caretaker government with limited powers. As a result of this crisis, Belgium had no budget for 2011 and continued functioning with regular resolutions which prolonged the 2010 budget from month to month. Eventually on 10 January 2011, with no end to the political crisis in sight, and financial markets becoming alarmed about the lack of progress in addressing the budget deficit, Belgian King Albert II asked caretaker prime minister Leterme to craft a new budget for 2011.

While Vande Lanotte was preparing his proposal, the government formation broke the 2007 record of 194 days on 25 December.

On the evening of 3 January 2011, each president of the seven parties received a copy of the proposal by Vande Lanotte, which had been three months in the making. Each copy had ever so minimal differences as to recognize the source of any potentially leaked document. The 60 pages long document contains five chapters:

• Political renewal (Senate reform, concurrent elections each five years, ...)
• Transfer of several competences to regions
• Brussels (small internal reform, function of Governor abolished, ...)
• Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde will be split (exceptions for municipalities with language facilities, ...)
• Finance law (transfer of taxes to the regions, ...)

The following day, all negotiating parties responded. The Flemish parties expressed strong reservations about Vande Lanotte's proposals, while the Francophone parties were lukewarm. Eventually five of the seven parties agreed to Vande Lanotte's proposal, but two Flemish parties rejected it outright.

On the 6th January 2011, Vande Lanotte submitted his resignation to the king, requesting to be relieved of his position as mediator as he claimed there was a lack of political will to reach an agreement. However the resignation was rejected by King Albert. The King however assigned De Wever and Di Rupo to work in close cooperation with Vandelanotte to reach an agreement that both the N-VA and the PS could support. This "triumvirate" did not work out, and on the 26th January 2011 Vandelanotte again requested the King to be relieved of his task, to which the King agreed.

Informateur Didier Reynders

Finance minister Didier Reynders was appointed informateur by the king on 2 February 2011 and reported to the king on 16 February 2011, although the mission was extended to March 1.

See also

• 2007–2008 Belgian government formation
• 2007–2011 Belgian political crisis