“If they wanted to stab me in the back, why didn’t they do it eight months ago?” That is the question that Antwerp mayor and N-VA chairman Bart De Wever poses on Sunday afternoon The seventh day. He said, among other things, that MR asked him last summer to unload Open VLD for the Flemish government. “So those sister relationships are not worth that much.”
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These are turbulent days and weeks for Bart De Wever. As mayor of Antwerp, he has to deal with a drug war in his city, with several explosions from grenades and fired houses. The chairman of N-VA also sees how a federal government is gradually being formed, but his party is not one of the seven parties that will be involved in that government formation.
Purple-green preference
In The seventh day On Sunday afternoon, De Wever sat next to preformateur and SP.A chairman Conner Rousseau. In recent months, he has repeatedly pulled the cart to form a government – so far without success – but said on Sunday that purple-green had been his preference from the start. “I’ve tried to find different solutions,” he said. “But this was my preference.”
De Wever said he respected Rousseau’s role in the story and its maturity. “I don’t think purple-green was his preference. But history is of course rewritten in function of a story. ”
Magnette
De Wever feels pushed aside, he says. “I have looked at how many countries there are in Europe where the largest party is pushed aside and there are some, but the two largest, that is unseen,” said the N-VA chairman. “It took a long time, but that long duration has become part of the political game in this country. It is allowed to take so long until people forget the election results and then it is turned upside down. ”
He tried to form a purple-yellow government with PS chairman Paul Magnette, but that ultimately did not work. “There were two of us with the PS and made a deal that was socio-economically balanced and that offered prospects for institutional reforms, a strict migration policy and nuclear power plants that remain open. That is a nice package, with which I dare to look the Fleming in the eye. But if the liberals torpedo you very actively – that’s what Mr. Lachaert has done from day one – it can’t be done. Mr. Magnette had the assurance that if it didn’t work out, he would be better off with purple-green, where he shouldn’t have to cut tax, not have tedious institutional reform, and get whatever he wants. I was there with a preformer who of course was not fanatical to make it work. I can’t even blame him for that. If you then get a liberal party that plays the game of Mr Bouchez, forms a counter bubble and lies against us, then it cannot be done. ”
According to De Wever, it was indeed Magnette who pulled the plug from purple-yellow. “Of course, he wanted to stop much earlier.” He does not feel cheated. “You can’t blame French-speaking and left-wing people for being French-speaking and left-wing.”
Minority
“Until 2024, Flanders will be governed for 12 years without a majority,” says De Wever. “We do 83 percent of the exports, pay 70 percent of the taxes, pay billions in transfers and as a thank you we are in our own country in a minority when we face the worst economic crisis, we become the biggest parties are pushed aside – which is not the case anywhere else in the world – and we get another French-speaking left-dominated government. The population is being crushed. They are already happy that there is something. ”
The last time working with Magnette to achieve government formation, De Wever calls a calculated risk. “That was the very last chance.”
Knife in the back
“And now that the game of the sister parties is being played, I have to get something off my heart,” said the N-VA chairman. “Last summer, the MR asked me to call the VLD and not to take them into the Flemish government in the hope of reaching an agreement with the PS. In revenge because VLD had dropped MR in Brussels. Apparently that much those sister bonds are worth. When I watch CD&V drop CDH quickly, I wonder how much that is actually worth. Nothing.”
De Wever says he does not understand why purple-green, an option that was already there before, now seems to be the solution. “Why didn’t they do this eight months ago – when Gwendolyn Rutten could possibly become prime minister? If they wanted to stab a knife in the back, couldn’t they have done this already? What has changed?” Today no longer Rutten, but Alexander De Croo is the liberal candidate to become prime minister.
The chairman of N-VA is noticeably disappointed in Open VLD and CD&V. “This represents a major problem for the Flemish government. We need to reconsider how much is left of the loyalty in that government. But it is difficult for me to get Flanders into trouble because democracy in this country no longer exists federally. ”
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