Eclectic mix of parties on verge of forming new Belgian government coalition

BRUSSELS — An eclectic mix of Belgian parties on Friday agreed on a government program to break a 7-month deadlock in coalition talks and are poised to appoint a Flemish nationalist as the new prime minister.

Bart De Wever of the N-VA party is set to become prime minister, succeeding Alexander De Croo who has remained in office as a caretaker since the June elections last year.

''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.

The agreement is still provisional since the five parties must still approve the program over the weekend.

All eyes were on the Vooruit socialist party from northern Flanders to see whether it would agree to join a program that would cut social benefits in an attempt to tackle the nation's debt-burdened budget. Overall, the nation has a debt totaling just over 100 % of GDP, putting it among the worst in the 27-nation European Union.

With Vooruit on board, the francophone MR free-market liberals, the centrist CD&V and Engages and the N-VA would complete the coalition, controlling 81 of 150 seats in the House for a comfortable majority.

While coalition governments are always fraught with difficulties, in Belgium it is further burdened with finding a balance between Dutch-speaking Flanders, with 6.7 million people, francophone Wallonia, with 3.7 million, and multilingual Brussels, with 1.2 million.

The length of coalition talks highlighted however how difficult it was to bridge fundamental gaps between the different parties.

At 236 days, it still falls far short of the Belgian record of 541 days in 2010-2011.