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Bart De Wever (N-VA) and Paul Magnette (PS) may be close to a majority with their bubble of five parties, ‘yet the end of the mission seems to be approaching’, can be heard in the entourage of the preformateurs. Liberals and Greens put their heels in the sand.
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In principle, another meeting with the Liberals and Greens is scheduled for this weekend, but little is expected of that. The preformers no longer see a way out of the impasse in which the formation has ended up.
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The protagonists want to put everything together this weekend before they are expected at the Royal Palace again on Monday. But the courage has sunk in De Wever and Magnette’s shoes, because it seems to be impossible to involve a sixth party in their bubble.
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If the preformers fail, it’s up to the blue-green bubble to try again to establish a purple-green construction or a Vivaldi coalition.
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The atmosphere has dropped below freezing after the liberals and the greens had announced in a joint press release on Friday, at the initiative of MR chairman Georges-Louis Bouchez, that they are tired of the preformateurs trying to play them off against each other. Blues and greens also found each other in the criticism of the Community plans presented in the agreement between the N-VA and the PS.
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House of cards
Immediately the house of cards of De Wever and Magnette is about to collapse, because if one of the cards is pulled, neither De Wever nor Magnette will get it sold to his supporters.
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By throwing another bowling ball at that house of cards, Bouchez showed that he cannot be underestimated politically, after De Wever had tried to put him offside. With his attack on the Community ‘sell-out’ of the country, he immediately increased the pressure on Magnette. That was already under pressure, because in De Tijd had leaked what the PS did not bring in.
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It was therefore a crisis on Keizerslaan, where the party headquarters of the PS is located. Internal opposition to the deal with the N-VA had died down, but is in danger of flaring up again. Still, Magnette sticks to the N-VA, because that still brings him closest to the most progressive policy, as he pursues it.
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Yet the mission is hanging by a thread, because opening an opening to the liberals or the greens is not feasible. If it breaks, it will be up to the blue-green bubble to try again to establish a purple-green construction or a Vivaldi coalition can be heard.
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