Belgium held federal elections in May, with negotiations currently on-going over the makeup of the next government. As Peter Van Aelst writes, a key concern is that the country could experience political deadlock of the kind which occurred after the 2010 elections, where it took 541 days of negotiations before a government could be formed. He notes that while there appears to be more urgency than there was in 2010, the linguistic cleavage between French and Dutch-speaking parties will still be exceptionally difficult to overcome

Van Aelst, Peter

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Belgian Parliament, Credit: Christian Stock (CC-BY-SA-3.0)24/06/2014The early signs are that Belgium is heading for morepolitical deadlock over who should form the nextgovernmentblogs.lse.ac.uk /europpblog/2014/06/24/the-early-signs-are-that-belgium-is-heading-toward-more-political-deadlock-over-who-should-form-the-next-government/Belgium held federal elections in May, with negotiations currently on-going over the makeup of the nextgovernment. As Peter Van Aelst writes, a key concern is that the country could experience politicaldeadlock of the kind which occurred after the 2010 elections, where it took 541 days of negotiationsbefore a government could be formed. He notes that while there appears to be more urgency thanthere was in 2010, the linguistic cleavage between French and Dutch-speaking parties will still beexceptionally difficult to overcome.Belgium has built a reputation when it comes to chocolate, beer and cycling. More recently, we arealso making a name for ourselves when it comes to government formation – or, more precisely, theinability to make a government within a reasonable amount of time. After the 2007 election it took 194 days to form agovernment, while the 2010 election led to a world record breaking process of 541 days. So it comes as no surprisethat today, one month after the federal elections on 25 May, not a single Belgian expected to have a newgovernment.Why is the government formation process in Belgium so complicated?Forming a government in Belgium has never been easy. Belgium is a federal country mainly based on a linguisticcleavage between Francophones and Dutch-speaking inhabitants. Besides Flanders and Wallonia, the two largestregions in terms of population (60 per cent and 30 per cent respectively), Belgium also consists of a third region: thebilingual capital Brussels (10 per cent).This linguistic divide and the on-going federalisationprocess have certainly increased the ‘bargainingcomplexity’ for politicians, particularly as Belgium has nonational parties anymore. At the end of the 1960s, thetraditional parties split into separate Flemish andFrancophone parties. The effect on formation durationwas quite strong: until 1968 the average time was 28days, afterwards it has always taken longer than that toform a new cabinet.In recent years, the number of parties has furtherincreased, making Belgium one of the most fragmentedparty systems in the world. Furthermore, the Belgianelectoral system provides no national constituency:campaigns are run largely independently on both sidesof the language border. After the elections the two,sometimes conflicting, election outcomes are puttogether and the negotiations can start. As aconsequence, in its post-war history Belgium hasfrequently had difficult processes of governmentformation, occasionally taking more than 100 days. In1/3comparative perspective this can be considered long, but not exceptional. Belgian formation duration used to besimilar to that in Austria and Iceland, and clearly shorter than in the Netherlands. It seems that something haschanged between 2003 and 2007.Conflict over constitutional reformDuring the 1990s, the linguistic tensions seemed to have disappeared from the top of the political agenda. Morerecently, however, the linguistic divide has been refueled. In the campaigns of 2007 and 2010, state reform was aprominent issue, certainly compared to the two previous campaigns. The Flemish electoral cartel of Christian-Democrats (CD&V) and Flemish nationalists (N-VA), led by Yves Leterme, focused on increased autonomy for theFlemish region. French-speaking parties, however, opposed another constitutional reform. These conflictingpositions led to a difficult formation with a new government almost 200 days after the elections.The Leterme government was never very stable and tensions between French-speaking and Dutch-speakingparties resulted in early elections in June 2010. These elections made the N-VA the biggest party of Flanders. Theunwillingness of the French-speaking parties to take another major step in the reform of the state boosted thepopularity of the Flemish nationalists led by Bart De Wever. In Wallonia, the Parti Socialiste (PS) of Elio Di Rupobecame the undisputed leader.Although PS and N-VA had little in common in terms of socio-economic policy and state reform, they tried for severalmonths to reach a compromise, but without success. During the 541 days of government formation, the Belgian KingAlbert II asked seven people from five different parties to take up a role as ‘informateur’, mediator, negotiator,clarificator or (pre-)formateur. The latter role was finally taken up by Elio Di Rupo after almost a year of negotiations.It took him another half year to reach an agreement on state reform and form a new government with six parties.The nationalist N-VA, the biggest party in Flanders, did not have involvement in any of these agreements.Surviving a year and half without a real governmentHow did the country manage without a real government for such a long period of time? There are many factors atplay. The multi-level character is certainly an important reason. There was no national government, but the regionalgovernments worked perfectly well. Also, the EU, as a supranational government, provided political continuity, whilethe euro assured economic stability.Several observers and politicians today warn us that a long period without government could harm the economicand financial position of the country, as happened last time. However, a recent study from the Flemish Institute forEconomy and Society (Vives) showed that the increased interest rate in Belgium in 2011 was not strongly related tothe ongoing government formation process, but rather to the financial crisis.Finally, the Belgian parliament also played a positive role in this process. During the absence of a real government,parliamentarians had more freedom than before to go beyond the opposition-government divide and were able topass relatively more legislation. In short, Belgium survived and politicians did not feel a real sense of urgency.The situation in 2014This time around, is there more of a sense of urgency to form a government? Undoubtedly the answer to this is yes.Bart De Wever and his N-VA party, who triumphed on election day, strengthening their position as the biggest partyin Flanders, have taken the lead and seem committed to forming a centre-right government. However this does notmean that Belgium will have a new government soon.First of all, this is because the Flemish nationalists and their leader are highly unpopular and mistrusted in theFrench speaking part of the country. This should come as no surprise as they actively campaigned against thebiggest French speaking party (the PS), have proposed harsh economic reforms, and hold the long-term objective ofabolishing the Belgian state. French speaking journalists have often demonised De Wever and seldom contribute to2/3a more nuanced view of Flanders’ leading politician (in electoral terms at least).Another complicating factor is the preliminary deal between two francophone parties (PS and CdH) to form the nextregional government in Wallonia and Brussels. As a reaction, the N-VA and CD&V made a similar deal in Flanders.The fact that the regional level forms a government before the national level can be considered as proof of thegrowing importance of the regions. This also implies that government coalitions will probably be asymmetric at bothlevels. For the time being, however, not a single government is in place and the caretaker governments are here tostay for a while.At the moment there seems to be a strange paradox in the position of the parties at both sides of the languageborders. In Flanders, where ideas about growing autonomy and independence have gained popular support, mostparties are willing to form a government and hope the Flemish nationalists ‘take their responsibility’ as leading party.In Wallonia, where Belgium or at least the status-quo is still intact, parties seem much less eager to become part ofthe national government (with the Flemish nationalists).And what do ordinary Belgians think about this, you may ask? They hope we will become world-champion. Neverbefore in my life have I seen so many Belgian flags in the street. A sign of football fever? Or would many Flemingsand Walloons silently hope the Red Devils can save the country?For a longer discussion of some of these issues, see the author’s recent co-authored paper in West EuropeanPoliticsPlease read our comments policy before commenting .Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy, norof the London School of Economics.Shortened URL for this post: http://bit.ly/V6TUQy _________________________________About the authorPeter Van Aelst  – University of AntwerpPeter Van Aelst is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Antwerp, Belgium.3/3

The early signs are that Belgium is heading for more political deadlock over who should form the next government

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