Brussels: Europe and the Arabs
Coordinator Bart De Wever is leading the mediation efforts between the five Belgian parties participating in negotiations to form a new federal government, more than six months after the elections that took place in mid-June. Belgium had witnessed a record after the 2010 elections when negotiations to form a government took 541 days.
According to what local media reported from De Wever saying, "Finally we can negotiate in depth": There must be a new government by the end of January. The newspaper "News Blad" said that there must be a "major breakthrough" by next week, so that the king can give him a final deadline.
The newspaper quoted Sami Al-Mahdi, head of the Christian Democratic Party: I hope that everyone will come to the table in 2025 with good intentions. He confirmed that the five negotiating government parties, which in addition to his party, the Walloon Liberal parties, the Flemish Socialists, the Flemish Alliance and the centrist Luangage party, "will work towards a new federal government by the end of January. "It was agreed with the five parties that we must land by the end of January. We are now preparing everything technically and from January 2 until the end.

The coordinator and the party leaders met yesterday to discuss the progress of the social and economic negotiations. On this basis, the coordinator and the party leaders agreed to speed up the pace of work. "In the coming days, this will be prepared at a technical level so that the party leaders can resume an intensive work schedule on January 2," said a statement from Bart De Wever.

De Wever is expected to visit King Philippe again on January 7 to report on the negotiations. "The goal is to achieve a major breakthrough in the negotiations and in this case to request a final extension," the statement said.

The negotiators had initially aimed to form a government before the end of the year, but this target date is no longer realistic. On Saturday evening, the leader of the Luangaji party, Maxime Rivot, made it clear that January 7 also seemed too early for him and now the end of January, more than seven months after the June 13 elections, is being proposed as the date for the formation of a government called the Arizona government. It guarantees more than half of the seats in parliament.
The focus of the discussions remains the socio-economic reform memorandum presented by De Wever and the amendments presented by the potential coalition partners.
An agreement on a new federal government could be reached by January 7, the day when the coordinator Bart De Wever is expected to visit the King again. This is what the president of the Liberal Party, MR Jorge Louis Bouchez, added: "The games must stop, the election results must be respected and, above all, everyone must understand that additional taxes cannot be increased in the most taxed country in the world." He thus once again demonstrates his intransigence regarding additional taxes, including on capital. We must rely on reality and clarity of figures, not on vague words. The attitude must change: rigor, seriousness and hard work must guide our actions! The party leaders sat down together with the aim of continuing negotiations on De Wever’s social and economic memorandum. This concerns reforms in the areas of taxation, the labor market and pensions, and is supposed to lead to a saving of 20 billion euros for the budget. On the other hand, other parties in Belgium saw this delay as reflecting the deep divisions between the parties involved in the negotiations, especially between the Flemish National Party (N-VA) led by Antwerp Mayor Bart De Wever, and the Flemish Socialist Party (Vooruit) led by “Conner Rousseau”. The main differences focused on economic issues and social reforms, as the two parties differ on the fiscal policies and austerity measures necessary to reduce Belgium’s budget deficit, which will require around 20 billion euros in savings in the coming years.