De Croo will now present his resignation to King Philippe, who has the power to reject it at his discretion.
Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo announced his resignation after the defeat of his party, the Flemish Liberals and Democrats (Open VLD), in the European elections.
“For us it is a particularly difficult night. We have lost. Starting tomorrow, I will resign as Prime Minister,” a visibly emotional De Croo announced in a speech to his supporters on Sunday.
De Croo will now present his resignation to King Philippewhich has the power to reject it at its discretion.
Although expected to fall behind nationalist and far-right parties in Flanders, Open VLD has suffered its biggest drop in De Croo’s own East Flanders constituency, where its list fell from 17.85% in 2019 to 10%. this time -and less than 7% in total-.
Although polls predicted that the far-right, anti-immigration Vlaams Belang party would become the main political force in the country of 11.5 million inhabitants, the right-wing nationalist New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) retained its first placewith a foreseeable 22% of the votes, according to the provisional results provided by the Ministry of the Interior.
Sunday’s results will lead to complex negotiations in a country divided by language and deep regional identities. Belgium is divided along linguistic lines, with French-speaking Wallonia in the south and Dutch-speaking Flanders in the north, and governments are invariably formed by coalitions of parties from both regions.
Belgium holds the world record of longer time needed to form a government, after a government coalition was named in December 2021 after a total of 541 days of negotiations.
More than 8 million Belgians voted in the so-called “Super Sunday” elections to elect their regional and national representatives and the MEPs of the new European Parliament.
Additional sources • AP
