Do you know that joke from the Flemish nationalist who will keep Belgium together in the coming period? After a 236-day formation, Bart De Wever presented a new government this week, in which his own New Flemish Alliance cooperates with the French-speaking Liberals (MR), the Flemish Christian Democrats (CD&V), the French-speaking center party Les Engagés and the Flemish Socialists Ahead. As ‘Prime Minister’, De Wever, who was mayor of Antwerp in the past twelve years, is at the helm of this ‘Arizona coalition’-after the colors of the flag of the US state.
The coalition formation was difficult and the agreement now reached is a traditional ‘compromise à la Belge’ – the national art to skip with a creative agreement between very opposite positions. At the same time, the ambitions are great and the weaver wants long -term headache files such as the tightened pension system, long -term unemployment and the budget deficit. If the parties succeed in implementing the reforms, that would mean a breakthrough in a country that has not succeeded in tackling public finances and deskucration for years. Economists immediately question some wishes and state that the new coalition is very rich economically.
It is striking that De Wever, who made a name as a political provocateur, now that the anchor of stability should become a shaky coalition. Exactly twenty years ago he drove a truck to Wallonia to hand out banknotes, to raise the alleged welfare transfer. The fact that he now becomes prime minister of all Belgians is the completion of a process in which the Flemish nationalist has moved more and more to the center in recent years-while his former hard statements about migrants became mainstream.
For example, you can now surprise that the new Prime Minister De Wever is actually a fairly moderate voice among European colleagues. His political success breaks with the tendency of many European politicians to move more and more towards the radical flank for electoral gain. The fact that his party won the elections last year cannot be seen separately from his decision to exclude every cooperation with the radical-right Vlaams Belang during the campaign. During that campaign, De Wever also succeeded in shifting attention from the theme of migration to economic topics.
While the fear that Belgium has been tearing sounds louder for years, it has again been possible to forge a coalition in which contradictions between Flanders and Wallonia are bridged. For the first time since 2008, the coalition also has a majority in both language groups of parliament. You can see that a Flemish nationalist is at the head of it as a pinch of Belgian surrealism, but also shows pragmatism to which his party is prepared. That is not the case of the stocking – De Wever also has a ‘refrigerator’, where confederal plans remain in his case. Moreover, with an increasing venom between the liberals and socialists this coalition is, it must also be apparent.
The first image that the new cabinet showed was not much beautiful anyway. Among the fifteen cabinet members are only four women and all five Deputy Prime Ministers are man. Both De Wever and other male politicians shrugged afterwards about that “casual” circumstance. In 2025 that is a little convincing excuse.