Over the last seven months, the King has appointed various Informateurs, who are responsible for examining possible coalitions. In December, consensus seemed within reach between the Socialist, Liberal and Green families, but it fell down over a lack of majority within the Flemish-speaking group in the Chamber. Objectively, this is not a strong argument. Between 2018 and 2014, the Van Rompuy, Leterme II and Di Rupo governments were in this same situation; the Michel government, moreover, had the slenderest of majorities on the French-speaking side, but this did not stop them from doing their jobs.
The Flemish Christian Democrats (CD&V) declined to come on board, arguing that the NVA should be part of the government. Its leader, Bart De Wever, recently put forward a counter-proposal, in which he made a point of bringing the CD&V and the Flemish Socialists on board a more social team and, apparently, one without confederalist aims; but the French speakers’ allergy to the NVA, particularly among members of the PS and Greens, is considerable. Confidence is practically zero and their manifestoes are diametrically opposed.
We, meanwhile, are left as dismayed observers of a political game in which everybody bases their behaviour on the virtual results of future elections, irrespective of whether they are to take place this year or at the end of a full term. No party wants to be seen by the general public as being responsible for blocking the formation of a federal government and thus forcing early elections. And how you win the game is by making your enemy look as though they are responsible for forcing early elections. Spectacular!
In its articles of association, the ‘NVA’ party’s stated objective is independence for Flanders: the old dream of bringing a new State into being. Opinion polls show that the Flemish population would not support going this far; yet it voted in that direction. To achieve its goal one day, the NVA is arguing the case for a confederation in which the central government would be scaled down to skeleton sovereign powers and served by a limited number of ministers from the two Communities. Under this new architecture, Brussels Region would disappear as an autonomous entity and would be co-managed on an equal basis by the Flemish and the Walloons.
If this should ever come to pass, considerable problems would unfortunately be likely in Brussels, a cosmopolitan and multilingual city (whose image has evolved considerably from what it was last century), which more or less manages its diversity, its social and territorial problems and whose inhabitants wish to be governed by their elected representatives, not just because they are familiar with their problems, but also out of democratic principle. Any deterioration in the situation in Brussels would have a deleterious effect on the city’s attractiveness to the institutions of the EU and those which gravitate around them. Such a scenario is a matter of indifference to the increasingly Eurosceptic and climate-sceptic NVA, whose members of the European Parliament take their seats on the ECR group.
With the exception of Vlaams Belang, the other political groups are, to differing degrees, in favour of keeping in place the federal state, yet open to improving it, on the basis of an objective cost-effectiveness analysis, even to the point of re-federalising certain dossiers. However, their reflection on the subject appears to be less than mature and even less generally shared.
To return to the painful process of delivering a federal government, let us agree that the more time that passes with no results, the more convincingly the NVA will be able to argue that Belgium has become ungovernable and that a radical change of approach is needed. This idea has, needless to say, been brewing for a while among the Flemish-speaking electorate and even among various constitutional experts.
But equally, the more time that passes in vain, the more likely the hypothesis of fresh elections in the spring becomes. And in that regard, the opinion polls are pitiless: far-right (Vlaams Belang) and right-wing nationalism (NVA) will gain more seats, and the traditional parties’ slump will continue. The situation would become even more difficult if not impossible to manage. An outright regime crisis is obviously not in the monarchy’s interests, and it is not in the European Union’s interests either.
‘Fortune favours the injudicious and venturesome, people who like to say ‘the die is cast!’, wrote Erasmus, a philosopher who is doubtless read in Laeken. The King still holds one card he has not (yet?) played: appointing an unexpected formateur, a figure who is competent and highly respected, who would put together a team not of technicians, but of legitimate and qualified political figures and would then stand before the Chamber, taking the risk of not having a majority, but with the possibility of obtaining one. That would be an unexpectedly venturesome move, but one that the population would certainly appreciate.
Because, given the lacklustre performances of the various informateurs in the media spotlight over the last seven months, the public has grown unrelenting in its mistrust of the political classes. According to an opinion poll published in December by RTL, 80% of Belgians consider it ‘shameful’ still to have no government after a year. And in Flanders, there is only a scant majority in favour of early elections. In other words, the politicians are not doing their jobs.
Obviously, many EU member states are or have been the scene of political crises and endless negotiations to put together a government, but the Belgian version of the story is pretty much existential.
In an interview with the Belgian daily newspaper ‘Le Soir’ published on 23 December 2019, Jean-Claude Juncker said: ‘I think that on certain points, the extremes of the Flemish political landscape are not beneficial to Belgium. Belgium is the only country in the world I know that is not proud of itself. I never meet Belgians who are proud of Belgium’ (our translation).
Harsh, but fair. In this context, it is now for the Palais and MPs to create the conditions to grow a healthy pride. Before it’s too late.
The Europe-that-sees-itself-as-being-close-to-the-citizens will be watching from the wings…
Renaud Denuit