Belgium's caretaker prime minister agreed a deal on Wednesday to give the country a new government six months after an inconclusive general election. While the deal was welcomed after a record 192 days without a government, analysts said it would be difficult to form a stable administration in the linguistically divided country.
"The prime minister has unblocked the situation," a spokesman for Guy Verhofstadt said, adding that an interim government could be sworn in on Friday after a French-speaking party agreed to join a five-party coalition. The failure to form a government in Belgium, home to the European Union and Nato, had sparked speculation that the 177-year-old state could split into Dutch- and French-speaking regions.
Verhofstadt was asked by King Albert to put an end to the political deadlock after Flemish Christian Democrat leader Yves Leterme failed in two attempts to form a government despite emerging as the winner from June's election.
Providing it passes a parliamentary vote of confidence, currently scheduled for Sunday, an interim government would last no longer than March 23, 2008, after which Leterme should lead a more permanent coalition. The interim government's main tasks will be to draft a budget for 2008, take urgency measures to tackle rising fuel and food prices and prepare institutional reforms.
Thousands of trade union members marched on Saturday in protest against the failure of their politicians to form a government. Belgians feared the prolonged deadlock had damaged the country's image and was driving away foreign investors. The deal brings some temporary respite, although analysts said the political crisis had been deferred, not resolved.
"For Europe, this means the crisis is over for Belgium," said long-serving finance minister Didier Reynders, head of the French-speaking Liberals-one of the five coalition parties. Verhofstadt, in power for more than eight years, grew in popularity throughout the crisis, when his outgoing government ran the country but could not take any initiatives beyond routine administration.
Leterme was unable to find a compromise with French-speaking parties on a reform to boost regional autonomy, a key demand for Flemish parties, which represent more than 6 million of Belgium's 10.4 million people. The more separatist and affluent Dutch-speaking Flanders region wants control of labour market policy and to be able to vary taxes, currently a federal government prerogative. The French-speaking Wallonia region, where unemployment is more than double that of Flanders, feels it will lose out from a reform and that the federal state could become an empty shell. Analysts cautioned that the tensions between Flemish and Walloon would remain despite the end of the political impasse.
"The crisis is not over. No one knows what will happen after Easter," said Carl Devos a political scientist at Ghent University. "It's like a fire that has not really been put out. It's smouldering for now and in January, unless talks resume, you will see flames rising again."
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