Further one-week extension for De Wever

Bart De Wever, president of the Flemish nationalist party N-VA, has been given an extra week to investigate ways of forming a federal coalition government.

De Wever (pictured) was initially instructed by King Filip to come up with a proposal by 3 June, but was granted a further week to continue exploratory talks with the main political parties. The deadline has been pushed back again until 17 June in the hope that De Wever can broker a deal with parties on both sides of the language border.

De Wever is currently engaged in talks with the French-speaking Liberals MR and the Christian democrats CDH with a view to forming a centre-right coalition. Both parties have said they are open to discussion, but each one has reservations. “The party hasn’t said yes, but it hasn’t said no,” said a leading Christian democrat.

Meanwhile, N-VA and the CD&V are moving rapidly towards forming a coalition government for Flanders. The two parties met yesterday in the elegant 18th-century Errara House in Brussels to discuss how they would hammer out government policy for the coming five years. The new coalition is expected to come up with tough austerity measures to deal with an expected government deficit of €1 billion in 2015 and €1.3 billion in 2016.