Vooruit remains sceptical about potential of federal negotiations
Vooruit is willing to rejoin the negotiations with the federal government if formateur Bart De Wever's makes his economic proposal "fairer". But Flemish minister Melissa Depraetere is sceptical about the chances of that happening, she told VRT on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, formateur De Wever was given two more weeks to get the federal government negotiations back on track. De Wever said he is looking for a stable majority, for which the only option is a coalition that includes Vooruit. According to several newspapers, there will be no new version of his socio-economic proposal, but individual chapters will be amended.
Flemish Vooruit minister Melissa Depraetere has little faith that those changes will make the text more palatable to her party. "We have been discussing this note for five months. The method is presented differently, but the problem is the content," she told VRT on Wednesday.
Difficult decisions
Depraetere said she was aware that difficult decisions had to be taken to put Belgium's budget in order and that the majority did not vote for left-wing policies in the June elections. "We have already taken many steps towards the other parties. We now ask them to take a step in our direction on one point," that the burden of these decisions does not fall on the same group of people.
CD&V and Les Engagés, among others, have criticised Vooruit for not trying to change the texts at the negotiating table. "I have not seen that they have managed to change anything substantial," Depraetere said. "Just changing some points and commas to make it a little less painful, we are not going to do that."
"Just changing some points and commas to make it a little less painful, we are not going to do that"
The feeling among socialists is that the negotiations are going nowhere and that the other parties are not prepared to meet them halfway. Depraetera was particularly critical of MR leader Georges-Louis Bouchez, who is said to be unwilling to make concessions.
© BELGA PHOTO HATIM KAGHAT
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