Opposition lambasts the failed budget round as CD&V urges its partners to get back to talks quickly
From Vlaams Belang to the PS, the opposition reacts sharply to the lack of a deal, while CD&V, the first majority party to speak out, warns that a government crisis solves nothing.
On Monday morning CD&V was the first party in the Arizona majority to react to the failed inner cabinet meeting. According to L'Avenir, the party is calling on its coalition partners to return to the table quickly and constructively. In CD&V's view the country has no time to lose, and a possible government crisis would solve no problems but create new ones, with the middle class and families footing the bill. The party asks that reason prevail over electoral shows of strength.
The opposition is harsher. PS leader Paul Magnette says the country is entering a great fog, in his words 'une grande nébuleuse', and argues that the government protects large fortunes at all costs when there was room for tax fairness, La Libre reports on the basis of Belga. Vlaams Belang says De Wever promised historic reforms but is delivering a historic budget crisis. Anders leader Frédéric De Gucht notes that two months of negotiations have produced nothing but a resignation letter, while companies are closing and families are struggling.
Groen MP Matti Vandemaele told VRT NWS it was a total embarrassment for a sitting prime minister, who in his view is above all a prime minister of stalemate. The party still hopes for a balanced budget and accuses the coalition of having so far placed the burden mainly on the middle class. PVDA group leader Germain Mugemangango told Bel RTL that his party would not regret the prime minister's resignation and that policy needs to change course. Ecolo co-leader Gilles Vanden Burre denounced on BX1 the instability that he says the government is causing out of ideology. He proposes asking the broadest shoulders to contribute, trimming the planned defence spending and reducing dependence on fossil fuels.