Members of Les Engagés and MR approve government participation
Members of Les Engagés and MR on Saturday gave their parties the green light to join the governments of Wallonia and the French Community.
At a congress in Louvain-la-Neuve, Les Engagés voted unanimously, with one abstention, to take part in the government. A few minutes later, the French-speaking Liberals in Charleroi did the same unanimously.
Les Engagés and the MR were the big winners in the elections in the south of Belgium on 9 June. Just over a month later, on Thursday, they presented their coalition agreements for Wallonia and the French-speaking community. Two days later, as expected, the parties' members approved the agreements.
Maxime Prévot, the leader of Les Engagés, stressed that both agreements represented change. This change will not come brutally, but with consultation, he explained. "But everyone must accept that tomorrow will be different from yesterday, and that is what the voters of Les Engagés and the MR wanted in large numbers. If we had not proposed texts with clear fault lines, they would have felt betrayed".
"People are not afraid of change. In fact, they expect it. And we embody that change."
"These agreements herald the end of taboos," MR leader Georges-Louis Bouchez told party members. For too long, he said, issues had been left untouched because it was too difficult or because of fear of strikes. "People are not afraid of change. In fact, they expect it. And we embody that change."
Both parties want to limit the number of ministers in the south of Belgium to 10. Some of them will, therefore, have a double function, both in the Walloon government and in that of the French community. The ministerial line-up will be finalised over the weekend so that the Walloon minister-president can be sworn in before the King on Monday and the political declaration can be read out on Monday afternoon.
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