Prime Minister Sophie Wilmès accepts the proposal to stay in the Sixteen until October 1. She does want to remain at the disposal of parliament, where she promised in March to organize a vote of confidence by 17 September at the latest. Wilmès said this in a digital debate by her party MR.
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September 17 was already close, but now that the Vivaldi train is forced to go virtually for a while due to the corona contamination of preformer Egbert Lachaert (Open VLD), the deadline has become untenable anyway. Appointing a formateur in quarantine does not seem to work. The seven negotiating parties investigated In other words, how they could best ask Prime Minister Wilmès to postpone her planned vote of confidence in parliament.
There is no script for this kind of situation, so everyone expected that she would just stay in the Sixteen, but today Wilmès also made it official. At Le Libre Débat, a virtual study day of the liberals – organized by MR chairman Georges-Louis Bouchez, but with the (online) presence of his Flemish counterpart Lachaert – she stated that she was prepared to continue until 1 October. That is the date that the preformators themselves have put forward, by then there must be a new government.
Covid has invited himself to the negotiating table and turned the agenda upside down. So we have to adapt if we want to continue to run the country in this health crisis, ”said Wilmès. She accepts the proposal to stay on for another two weeks, but wants to remain at the disposal of parliament so that she can still fulfill her promise. “It remains up to parliament to decide by majority whether it shares this will.”
United Belgium
Bouchez himself also spoke. “The Vivaldi government may not have been the coalition of your dreams, but it is a solution to give our country stability and deal with the worst crisis in years,” he assured at the end of Le Libre Débat. He reiterated that cooperation with the N-VA proved impossible, and that the liberals, together with the five other parties, are now fully committed to a ‘strong, efficient and united Belgium’.
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