Belgian stalemate deepens as Flemish nationalists leave talks

Oct 5, 2010, 13:07 GMT

Brussels - Belgium's Flemish nationalists withdrew Monday from seven-party talks, leading to another collapse in the four-month effort to build a new government.

The pullout by the Flemish nationalists, who want a looser Belgian confederation and to keep more tax income in the wealthy north, puts a stable government further out of reach.

Burt de Wever, leader of the Flemish nationalists (N-Va) which won a plurality in the June 13 elections, demanded that the negotiations begin anew under totally different conditions.

'We have to set the clock back to zero and start a new story,' he said.

The impasse comes as Belgium serves in the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union. De Wever urged the holdover Christian-Democrat government of Yves Leterme to continue its work.

The two high-ranking negotiators appointed by King Albert II - Chamber of Deputies President Andre Flahaut and Senate President Danny Pieters - announced that they were not able to break the stalemate in the negotiations.

They were tabbed in early September to break the impasse, and were to deliver a report on the continuing stalemate to the king on Tuesday, according to news agency Belga.

De Wever's pullout was sharply denounced by the French-speaking parties at the negotiating table as 'an irresponsible decision and harmful for all citizens,' said the francophone Socialists, Greens and Christian-Socialists in a joint statement. They said they were open to further talks.

The head of the Flemish Liberals, Alexander De Croo, who was not at the negotiating table, said that N-VA should now be assigned to form a governing coalition.

The N-VA 'must now take on the responsibility and come forth with a proposal to build a government,' De Croo said. He said that as victor in the June 13 elections, the N-VA was an indispensable power broker in Belgium's complicated politics.

Seven parties from the poorer French-speaking south and wealthier Flemish north are negotiating over government reforms as a precondition to building a new government.

The previous efforts collapsed in early September, when French- speaking Socialist Elio di Rupo offered N-VA the promise of constitutional reform and sweetened budget arrangements for northern regional government.

The N-VA and the more moderate CD&V balked at a parallel proposal to give Brussels, an independent, bilingual region within Flanders, an annual fixed subsidy of 250 million to 500 million euros to patch up its chronic budget deficit.