2023-09-03 15:51:00
The future of Belgium will go through confederalism, the result of a major agreement between the PS and the N-VA. This is at least the conviction expressed by Bart De Wever, president of the N-VA, during an interview granted to La Libre this Saturday.
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”I am convinced that one day the socialists will be able to conclude an agreement to move towards confederalism. And if the PS does it, I hope the rest of the Walloon left will follow. We’ll see,” said the Flemish nationalist from his office at Antwerp City Hall.
The president of the PS was not long in answering him.
“I say it and I repeat it. The socialists will never accept confederalism”, assured the microphone of LN24 Paul Magnette. “For us the cement of Belgium is social security and we will not touch social security. We will never be a partner to discuss this stuff.” These remarks were made on the occasion of the Summer Universities, at the Théâtre de Mons. On the occasion of this political retreat, the president of the PS presented a pre-assessment and advanced its pawns for 2024. “There is only one big party of workers, it’s the PS”, affirmed the mayor of Charleroi.
In June 2022 on the eve of a congress of the socialist party, Paul Magnette had already closed the door, denying all preparatory contacts with the N-VA, and ensuring that a “seventh state reform in 2024 is neither necessary or desirable”.
However, it would be premature to conclude that an agreement between the two parties is impossible, as arithmetic could impose.
But there is probably no worse place or time than a back-to-school socialist meeting, a few months before the elections, to discuss the possibility of an agreement with a Flemish nationalist and conservative party.
The rejection of confederalism expressed by Paul Magnette this Saturday is also centered on the financing of social security. However, if taboo there is indeed, it does not prevent that an institutional reform giving more power to the regions can occur through other competences.
Nobody, neither in the PS nor in the N-VA, has forgotten that in July 2020 Paul Magnette and Bart De Wever negotiated at length an agreement in which the socialists agreed to let go of the institutional ballast while the N- VA conceded on the socio-economic.
The PS, according to Bart De Wever, is not fundamentally opposed to a reform of federal institutions, even if the N-VA and the PS are advancing at different paces. “I want to move forward as fast as possible. For the PS, on the contrary, there is no urgency as long as there is money arriving”, assured Bart De Wever in La Libre. “When I speak openly and discreetly with regionalists such as Dermine or Dermagne, it is clear that their analysis of the future of this country is not so far from mine. But, me, I am in a hurry to succeed”.
Although Paul Magnette has repeatedly denied any preparatory contact with the N-VA for a reform of the state, the dialogue between the two parties is not broken. Discussions and meetings do indeed take place between the president of the N-VA and the socialists.
Dermagne at the Antwerp City Hall
One of the meetings mentioned by Bart De Wever actually dates from August 2022. Deputy Prime Minister Pierre-Yves Dermagne then very officially went to Antwerp at the invitation of the N-VA, for a harbor visit. The socialist had been received at the town hall where he had met Bart De Wever, mayor of the largest city in Flanders. There was talk, we are told, of the problem of drugs, which plagues the main port of the country, but also more broadly, of politics.
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Thomas Dermine, Secretary of State for Recovery, refuses to comment on the other meeting mentioned by the president of the N-VA.
More traditional contacts between PS and N-VA representatives also take place within the framework of parliamentary work. A heavyweight of the N-VA even ensures that “there are still very discreet contacts between N-VA and PS”.
There is a time for everything, and it’s time for pre-campaign talk among the Socialists. The fact remains that a significant part of the PS does not view the possibility of state reform in 2024 with such a dim view. This regionalist fringe retains a certain weight within the party, and is embodied by personalities like Nicolas Martin, mayor of Mons, the Walloon minister Christophe Collignon, or a heavyweight like Pierre-Yves Dermagne.
One of them, Malik Ben Achour (PS), federal deputy, again expressed it bluntly in August in the Echo. ”I am not opposed to a major institutional reform that will allow the Flemings to gain the autonomy they demand. In this case, it can be used for a great movement of economic redeployment of Brussels and Wallonia on the basis of a profound project of reindustrialisation”.
No doubt there will still be positions on both sides, small openings and major denials between now and the May 2024 elections. This will undoubtedly be, for Bart De Wever, the last chance to snatch the great reform of the State which he has always failed to obtain.
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