ZURICH, November 03 (AJP) - Belgium's governing coalition has failed to agree on next year's budget, and Prime Minister Bart De Wever offered his government's resignation on Monday. The crisis hits the country that hosts the headquarters of both the European Union and NATO.
The government has not yet fallen. Under Belgium's constitutional monarchy, a prime minister's resignation takes effect only if the king accepts it. King Philippe has held off on a decision and is due to see De Wever again on Friday.
The king began meeting the leaders of the five governing parties on Tuesday. The royal palace said he regretted the lack of agreement on "a credible budget" and urged the parties to act responsibly.
The parties are divided over how to find billions of euros in savings over the coming years. De Wever's New Flemish Alliance and the French-speaking liberal Reformist Movement favor spending cuts and reject tax increases, while their three partners have resisted. A fallback plan for a smaller emergency budget also failed.
Without an approved budget, the government must run on temporary monthly spending limits based on the previous year's budget.
De Wever, a conservative Flemish nationalist, took office in February 2025 at the head of a five-party coalition nicknamed "Arizona" because the parties' colors match those of the U.S. state's flag. It spans conservatives, liberals, centrists, socialists and Christian Democrats.
Building such coalitions is notoriously slow in Belgium, a country of about 12 million people divided between Dutch-speaking Flanders in the north and French-speaking Wallonia in the south. Most parties run on only one side of the language border, so every national government needs partners from both communities. After the June 2024 election, forming the current government took nearly eight months.
Belgium is among the most heavily indebted countries in the EU, with public debt above its annual economic output. Rising interest payments are squeezing the budget just as the government wants to spend more on defense.
The EU placed Belgium under a formal procedure in July 2024 for running a budget deficit above the bloc's limit of 3 percent of economic output.
The king can refuse the resignation and send the coalition back to negotiate, accept it and look for a new government, or call early elections. A new vote would come less than three years after the last one in June 2024.
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