The N-VA wants a fully-fledged government by the end of April

At the end of April EU member states will have to present their pluri-annual budgets to 2015 before the European authorities. In addition to this budget, at that time Belgium will also have to set out the measures necessary to attain the so-called Europe 2020 objectives, among other things as regards the number of people in employment (referred to as the “European semester”). However, an outgoing coalition which is only competent for current affairs and which barely holds 30 of the 88 Flemish seats in the Chamber of Representatives cannot take such far-reaching action on its own. If despite this the outgoing coalition still wishes to set the social and economic agenda for the next 4 years without the involvement of the largest political party in Flanders and Belgium, then it should at least muster up some democratic decency and ask parliament for a confidence vote to acknowledge that the outgoing coalition has in fact become a fully-fledged governing alliance. Should this happen, it would be a clear-cut indication that the signal sent by the electorate in 2010 has indeed been completely ignored.