Bart De Wever, party leader of the conservative Flemish separatist party NVA, has led the negotiations, which according to Le Soir have been intense in recent days.
The cross-block cooperation also includes Flemish social democrats, French-speaking liberals, and the Christian democrats of the two regions.
Thus, the far-right party Vlaams Belang, which became the second largest in the election, is left out of the government, whose five parties hold 82 of the parliament's 150 seats. Nor does the liberal party Open VLD of Prime Minister Alexander De Croo participate in the new coalition.
The new cooperation is called the Arizona coalition, because the parties' colors all appear in the US state's flag: yellow, red, blue, and orange.
The outgoing government – with liberals, social democrats, Christian democrats, and Green party members – has, in turn, lived under the collective name Vivaldi, as their ideologies and party colors have been described as diverse as the four seasons.
