Swing State? Belgium’s Arizona Coalition Walks a Tightrope

Belgium’s June 2024 federal elections yielded a surprising second-place finish for the far-right Vlaams Belang (VB) party.

Surprising, only because it was expected to place first. Instead, the right-wing Flemish nationalist party Nieuw Vlaamse Alliantie (N-VA) won and relegated the VB to the opposition. Migration policy and balancing the national budget dominated voters’ concerns in the election.

The new federal governing coalition, formed in late January after months of inconclusive negotiations, reflects a general rightward shift in Belgian politics. It comprises five parties: the N-VA, which heads the coalition, the liberal Mouvement Réformateur (MR), the center-right Christen-Democratisch en Vlaams (CD&V), the social democratic Vooruit and centrists Les Engagés. Deemed the Arizona coalition for its parties’ shared colors with the U.S. state’s flag, the grouping represents a departure from its predecessor’s centrist politics. The coalition agreement echoes the topics featured throughout the campaign: curbing migration and balancing the budget, mainly through welfare cuts.

Even after navigating a difficult negotiation period, Prime Minister Bart de Wever of the N-VA continues to face significant challenges from the VB. That party’s rise has been steady. It garnered 22.8% of the vote in Flanders, lower than the 24%-26% that polls expected but still an increase of three percentage points over its 2019 results. The gains are also playing out elsewhere. In last October’s local elections, the VB achieved its first mayorship in the small town of Ninove. Perhaps more crucially, the long-standing agreement among all other major parties to refrain from coalitions with the VB was shattered when it entered into governing partnerships in three Flemish municipalities. A recent poll shows the VB already regaining its pre-election popularity, narrowly reclaiming the status of Flanders’ largest party.

The Arizona government, therefore, faces a dilemma. With an agreement on migration policy, coalition members are attempting to siphon off votes from the far right by adopting some of its policies. Indeed, Vooruit, the CD&V and the N-VA were among the parties that shifted furthest to the right on migration ahead of June’s vote. Vooruit’s proposals included restrictions on family reunification and automatic rejection of asylum applications from countries deemed “safe”. Other parties made similar moves. The MR proposed deporting asylum seekers to “safe” countries bordering their nations of origin rather than hosting them in the EU. Les Engagés shifted their focus to prioritizing skilled migrants but remained opposed to strict cuts in overall migration numbers, even proposing an increase in visas granted on humanitarian grounds. Les Engagés therefore remains the coalition’s odd one out on migration policy.

The coalition agreement laid the groundwork for reducing the number of spots in asylum centers, limiting financial assistance for asylees and refugees, and implementing third-country processing centers, which mirrors an Italian policy now being scrutinized by the European Court of Justice. Human rights organizations have criticized such proposals for failing to comply with international and EU law. They would indeed represent a significant tightening of Belgian immigration law if implemented, but intra-coalition disagreements may stymie them. The N-VA initially wanted to repeal a law forbidding the confinement of families with children but dropped the idea as a concession in coalition negotiations, presumably to Les Engagés, which ran on strengthening the measure. The coalition instead agreed to review the family detention law after two years, potentially setting the stage for a major conflict on migration policy less than halfway into the government’s five-year term. Disunity over the extent of a rightward shift may yet come to a head.

The stakes are high given the VB’s continuing rise. The long-standing “cordon sanitaire” against cooperating with the far-right has already frayed at the local level. The party’s victory in the next national election, scheduled for 2029, would jeopardize regional- and national-level embargos against the VB. But Belgium is no stranger to government collapses. The N-VA engineered one in 2018 over support for a UN migration agreement. If the current government sees public support drop, as it already has in Wallonia, centrist and center-left coalition partners may grow less willing to accept concessions to the right on immigration. Fallout from a renegotiated family detention law could have significant consequences.

The move towards the VB on migration, whether it persists or not, may ultimately serve to normalize the far right’s policies, particularly if the government cannot deliver on its other proposed reforms. The Arizona coalition is attempting to walk a tightrope of appealing to far-right voters without normalizing their views. If it loses its balance, the cordon sanitaire may be what snaps.

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