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Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever offered his government's resignation to King Philippe on Monday, November 2, 2026, after his five-party coalition failed to agree on a budget package worth about €10 billion in spending cuts and tax increases.
De Wever was received by the King at the Royal Palace in Brussels at 9:30 a.m. after overnight talks with his deputy prime ministers ended without a deal, following a weekend of bilateral talks and a revised budget proposal presented on Sunday. The meeting lasted about one and a half hours. The Royal Palace said the King is holding his decision in reserve and will begin consultations with majority party leaders on Tuesday, with Belgian broadcaster VRT reporting De Wever will return to the palace on Friday.
The dispute is over how to find about €10 billion in savings by 2029 to steady Belgium's public finances and meet European Union fiscal rules. De Wever's Flemish nationalist New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) and the French-speaking liberal Reformist Movement (MR) favour spending reductions, while the Flemish socialists of Vooruit want the wealthiest Belgians to contribute about €1.5 billion in new taxes and the centrist Les Engagés put its minimum at €1 billion from the strongest shoulders. MR Deputy Prime Minister David Clarinval said there had been too much tax in the package, which VRT reported included more than €3 billion in levies.
Belgium's budget deficit reached 5.2 percent of GDP in 2025, one of the highest in the European Union and well above the bloc's 3 percent ceiling, while public debt stands at about 108 percent of GDP. The country has been under the EU's excessive deficit procedure since July 2024 and must bring its deficit below 3 percent by 2029. De Wever has repeatedly warned of an "interest snowball" if borrowing costs are not brought under control, as interest rates on Belgian government bonds have risen sharply.
Negotiators faced a deadline of midday on Tuesday, November 3, to strike a deal if the budget is to pass parliament before the end of the year. Without an agreement, Belgium would fall back on provisional twelfths, capping monthly spending at one-twelfth of the previous year's budget, an outcome De Wever has ruled out.
If the King accepts the resignation, the government would continue in a caretaker capacity while he asks other parties to form a new coalition or, potentially, calls new elections; acceptance would not automatically trigger elections. The standoff repeats a similar impasse in late 2025, when De Wever went to the King for more time and the parties eventually agreed €9.2 billion in savings on November 24, 2025.
The governing Arizona coalition brings together the N-VA, Vooruit, the Flemish Christian Democrats (CD&V), the MR and Les Engagés.