On the brink of new elections
This time it's serious.
Yesterday, 126 days after the elections, N-VA-president Bart De Wever published a document in which he describes a compromise to solve the political crisis. It was rejected immediately by all the French speaking parties (PS, cdH, Ecolo and even the FDF, which is not negotiating.)
De Wever had warned that the compromise would hurt everyone, including his own N-VA. He kept promise. The N-VA accepted to take only small (in a Flemish national perspective) steps towards more power for the regions. De Wever even suggested compensations for splitting up the electoral district Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde, which is a compromise as well for a Flemish-nationalist.
But for the French speaking parties, it was too much. They fear to impoverish, if the current Belgian way of financing the regions would change. They also don't like suggestions to put bigger parts of the Brussels region under joint 50/50 Flemish-French speaking command. Now politics in the Brussels region are dominated by the French speaking parties.
The rejection of the compromise means there is a complete deadlock. By refusing a compromise that is already surprisingly for a die hard flemish nationalist party, the French speaking parties de facto rule out a coalition with the N-VA. But in Flanders the N-VA is the winner of the last elections and is still growing in the polls. For the other Flemish political parties it would be electoral suicide to make a coalition without the N-VA and then accept a worse compromise (seen from the Flemish side of federal politics) than the one Mr. De Wever now suggested.
Later today Mr. De Wever goes to the king to brief him officially on the results of his mandate of 'royal clarifier'. It seems everything is said already. For 126 days, there was no alternative for an agreement between the N-VA and the PS. No alternative but an ugly one: new elections. That ugly alternative is coming very near now.
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