This morning, the king continues his consultation round with the party chairpersons. At 9 o’clock, Open VLD chairman Egbert Lachaert came by, an hour later his French-speaking MR colleague Georges-Louis Bouchez. After that, Ecolo and Groen will follow, and at 1 pm finally the smallest party, Défi.
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Especially the talks with the liberal presidents are crucial, because it was precisely those parties that were tied for the failure of the Purple & Yellow. Preformers Bart De Wever and Paul Magnette only wanted one liberal party in that coalition, preferably Open VLD, but Lachaert and Bouchez have riveted themselves together.
After previous consultation rounds, King Philippe always very quickly came up with a decision and a message about the next step. He is expected to do the same this time, making an announcement this afternoon. Exactly what it will be is preliminary food for speculation. A blue-green duo to move is possible, although both liberals and greens have already said they would not.
Another option is to appoint a mediator who is a little further away from the current top politics. The name of CD&V member Herman Van Rompuy is already circulating in the French-speaking media. This track is also in line with the proposal of the employers’ organization VBO to appoint an independent, authoritative figure to pull the staff out of the doldrums. But Van Rompuy says in a response that this is not the case. “That time is over,” he says. “I haven’t heard anything about this yet, and it wouldn’t interest me either.”
Another possible scenario is that the king does not accept the resignation of De Wever and Magnette as preformateurs and sends them back into the field. This in turn ties in with the calls by Conner Rousseau (SP.A) and Joachim Coens (CD&V) not to start over from scratch, and not to waste this opportunity to form a government with N-VA and PS.
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