BELGIUM:Five political parties straddling Belgium's linguistic divide have agreed to form an interim government, ending six months of constitutional crisis, at least temporarily.
Caretaker prime minister Guy Verhofstadht will lead the coalition until March 23rd, 2008, by which time it is hoped he will be able to hand over the post to Yves Leterme, the Flemish Christian Democrat leader who won Belgium's election 193 days ago.
Since the election Mr Leterme has failed to build a coalition, which needs to include political parties from Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia. His demands for new constitutional reforms, which would devolve more powers to Belgium's regions, have been rejected by parties representing French speakers.
"For Europe, this means the crisis is over for Belgium," said long-serving finance minister Didier Reynders, who is head of the French-speaking Liberals - one of the five coalition parties. Dutch-speaking Liberals, French and Dutch-speaking Christian Democrats and French-speaking Socialists are also in the interim coalition government.
Six months of deadlock in coalition talks has increased tensions between French and Dutch speakers, causing commentators to speculate that Belgium could soon split into separate states some 177 years after it was formed.
The delicate state of relations between the language groups was underlined on Saturday when the newly crowned Miss Belgium was booed by a crowd in Antwerp for not being able to speak Dutch.
The political deadlock has also caused serious concerns about the state of the economy and the lack of adequate political oversight of budgets in the past six months. Thousands of Belgian trade union members marched at the weekend in protest against the failure of politicians to form a government and tackle rising fuel and food prices. Belgians have also expressed fears that the prolonged deadlock had damaged the country's image abroad and was driving away foreign investors.
Parliament is expected to vote to support the interim government on Sunday, giving Mr Verhofstadt an unexpected extension to his premiership. The Flemish leader has been in power in Belgium for eight years and is considered a key unifying figure.
But he will have his work cut out in trying to forge a compromise between the Dutch- and French-speaking communities. Economically successful Flanders wants more control over tax and labour market policies, while Wallonia, which has more than double the level of unemployment in Flanders, fears it would lose from reforms.
"The crisis is not over. No one knows what will happen after Easter," said Carl Devos a political scientist at Ghent University.