The N-VA has the ambition to govern after the elections. But the Flemish nationalists have put confederalism back on the table, their president Bart De Wever said Saturday at the party’s New Year's reception. Approximately 5,500 members and supporters of the political party participated Saturday in Malines in what Bart De Wever presented as N-VA’s "most successful New Year celebration." By the end of 2018, N-VA had 46,000 members.
In December, the Flemish nationalists left Michel’s government and joined the opposition at the Federal level. The party will nevertheless continue to assume its responsibilities, Mr. De Wever said. "Much work has been done, but it is far from over. And let there be no mistake… it is our ambition to continue. We want to go on cleaning up and reforming."
With this in mind, the N-VA wants to put confederalism back on the table. "Do not use the Constitution as a weapon against the people’s power," the president said to all the other political parties. "Flemish and Francophones are entitled to their own policy, based on the majority in their own democracy. Let's move forward in this direction."
The N-VA also intends to remain in charge at the Flemish level. With a priority issue: education. "We must do everything to continue to improve the quality of our Flemish education," Bart De Wever said.
Apart from his criticism of Charles Michel, who, according to the N-VA, should have intervened when Spain lifted the diplomatic status of Flanders’s delegate in the Belgian Embassy, Bart De Wever refrained from directly challenging the other parties.
"If, within a EU country, such an attack against an MP’s freedom of expression is not a major incident, and if the fate of political prisoners does not matter to you, spare us your pompous remarks about the good side of the story," he said.
The Brussels Times
