After all, Belgium has a government
After several discussions, seven political parties in Belgium have finally agreed to form a majority coalition to replace the caretaker administration of Sophie Wilmes, who led the country through six months of the COVID-19 crisis.
The new government became known as the so-called Vivaldi-coalition, because its four components are thought to represent the composer’s Four Seasons: red for socialist parties PS and sp.a; blue for liberals MR and Open Vld; green for ecologists Ecolo and Groen; and orange for the Flemish Christian-democrats of CD&V.
Alexander De Croo (Open VLD) will be the first Flemish federal prime minister since 2011. From 2014 to 2018 he was minister for development cooperation and the digital agenda, as well as telecommunications and post. In 2018 he held onto development cooperation, and moved to become finance minister.
The federal cabinet is comprised of 20 members, equally split between both gender and language lines, made up of 14 ministers and five secretaries of state, plus new premier De Croo, a native Dutch speaker. The 50/50 balance between men and women makes this the first time that so many positions in Belgium’s federal government have gone to women. Generally, the ministers took the oath in both French and Dutch, and although some repeated it in German, no native German-speakers are included in the ministerial team.
How did this happen?
Because of the peculiar and unique way Belgium is structured, the federation is made up of three territorial regions — Flanders in the north, Wallonia in the south and the Brussels-Capital region — and three language-based communities, named after the language they speak: Dutch, French and German. Because things are so fractured, Belgium has 12 parties that hold elected seats, none of which hold more than 25 of the 150 seats. That means that in order to form a governing majority, coalition forming is a must.
Political parties only run in either Wallonia and Flanders, although they both run in the Brussels-Capital region. Therefore, the largest party in Flanders, New-Flemish Alliance (N-VA) was not even on the ballot in Wallonia, nor was Wallonia’s largest party, Socialist Party (PS), on the ballot in Flanders. N-VA is a Flemish political party that wants Flanders to be separated from the rest of Belgium, while PS, is a French-speaking social democratic party, campaigning for a united Belgium.
On the 21st of December 2018, former prime minister Charles Michel, the actual president of the European Council, submitted the formal resignation of his government of four years to King Philippe.
In December 2011, Belgium set a world record for the longest period without a government, totalling 541 days without an elected government. After the recent elections on the 26th of May 2019, it once more took 493 days to form a new federal government. The elections lead to a highly divided distribution of seats. Since then, many attempts have been made to form a government. However, this issue was remarkably pressing, as new elections had to be avoided.
