BRUSSELS — (AP) — Belgium has a new prime minister whose political purpose was long to break up the nation, gut the state structures and give ever more autonomy to his northern Flanders at the cost of everyone else.
Bart De Wever took the oath early Monday, looking straight at King Philippe, the latest monarch of a royal house he so long had little but disdain for because it symbolized the old concept of Belgian unity.
“I swear allegiance to the king,” he said.
It was another indication how times change, and bold demands for Flemish independence have made room for the hope of gradual change and finding a renewed balance between Dutch-speaking Flanders, with 6.7 million people, francophone Wallonia, with 3.7 million, and multilingual Brussels, with 1.2 million.
The prime minister and leading ministers took the oath in Dutch and French while several others on the 15-member team from both sides of the linguistic divide stuck to their own language during a short ceremony at the Royal Palace.
“You can ... not take part in a government and wait until the system can be taken as a whole. I never believed in that,” he told De Standaard newspaper. “The other option is to take part when you can, and obtain things for your community, and that is what we did."
“When you don't take part, you are certainly left emptyhanded,” he added.
Language issues are woven throughout the past century, as the French-dominated nation gradually made way for a balanced political scene while Wallonia's industrial prowess waned and Flanders' economic power rose.
De Wever of the Flemish nationalist N-VA party succeeds Alexander De Croo, who has remained in office as a caretaker since the June elections last year. De Wever will join his fellow European Union leaders at a summit in Brussels later Monday.
“We will have a government that will clean up the budget, implement a fair social policy, reward work, implement the strictest migration policy ever, abolish the nuclear phase-out, and invest in safety,” N-VA said in a statement.
One issue immediately stood out — gender balance. When De Croo had achieved quasi parity between men and women on his team, De Wever only has three women on his team of 15, and none among the four vice premiers. He has said he regrets it, but never made it a key point in the coalition talks.
De Wever brought an eclectic mix of five parties together to break a 7-month deadlock in coalition talks. The Flemish nationalist was only given a shot at successfully brokering a coalition because the PS socialists, De Wever's political nemesis, lost their generations-long grip on Wallonia. It allowed him to get a deal with a free-market MR party.
In Flanders, the Vooruit socialist party will have to make sure the cornerstones of Belgium's welfare society survive. The government program is set to cut social benefits in an attempt to tackle the nation’s debt-burdened budget. Overall, the nation has debt totaling just over 100% of GDP, putting it among the worst in the 27-nation EU.
With Vooruit on board, the francophone MR liberals, the centrist CD&V and Engages and the N-VA complete the coalition, controlling 81 of 150 seats in the House for a comfortable majority.
The length of coalition talks highlighted however how difficult it was to bridge fundamental gaps between the different parties.