CD&V rejects coalition with Flemish Interest

13 March 2006

BRUSSELS — The Christian Democrat CD&V has resolutely rejected any talk of entering into a coalition with the extreme-right Flemish Interest.

The official party statement was issued on Monday after the CD&V Mayor in Schoten, Harrie Hendrickx, said he was prepared to discuss a coalition with Flemish Interest after the 8 October local elections.

The local branches of the CD&V and Liberal VLD said they would both be prepared to consider a coalition with the Flemish Interest if they could not form a majority together.

The CD&V and VLD are currently the two largest coalition parties in Schoten, located near Antwerp.

They currently manage the municipality with the Socialist SP.A, but are not prepared to re-enter the same coalition after October’s elections. They are also opposed to a coalition with the green Groen! party.

Hendrickx said the CD&V and VLD wanted to jointly manage Schoten, but if they could not gain a majority together, they would not rule out a coalition including the Flemish Interest.

But any co-operation with the Flemish Interest is considered highly controversial in Belgium, where the mainstream political parties have set up a “cordon sanitaire” around the extremists in bid to exclude them from public office.

The Flemish Interest won a third of the vote at the local elections in 2000, making it the biggest party in the city of Antwerp. It is renowned for its anti-immigration policies.

And in an official CD&V statement on Monday, party chairman Jo Vandeurzen said the party’s executive was unanimously behind the policy of no co-operation with the Flemish Interest, newspaper ‘De Tijd’ reported.

“We can’t work with a party that magnifies problems without offering solutions and one that casts people up against one another,” he said.

Subject: Belgian news