Without a new government since the elections on 10 June, Belgium is plunging deeper into political crisis. Flemish members of parliament voted, on 7 November, in favour of a law that critics say will leave some 120,000 French speakers isolated by preventing them to vote for francophone parties in the Flemish periphery of Brussels.
The vote prompted French-speaking delegates to leave coalition negotiations led by Yves Leterme a Flemish Christian Democrat who won the June elections. According to Didier Reynders, the leader of the French-speaking Liberal Reform Movement, the 'Belgian pact' - which calls for different communities and minorities in this federal state of three regions to be respected - has been broken.
Regardless of what seems like a second defeat for the prime minister-designate Yves Leterme (see EurActiv 24/08/2007), Belgium's King Albert II asked the leader of the Flemish Christian Democrat party on 8 November to continue his mandate and strive to form a government coalition, on the basis of the so-called Blue Orange coalition (Christian Democrat and Liberal).
King Albert II, the symbol of unity between the two communities, is also considering the possibility of setting up a 'committee of wise men' to re-establish a dialogue between the two linguistic communities.
The main problem in the talks - involving the Christian Democrats and Liberals from Flanders and Wallonia - is Yves Leterme's party's demand for more regional powers in areas such as justice and transport, as well as in fields such as employment and social security, a move which the francophone parties said would substantially empty the federal state of its substance.
