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Political parties in Belgium agreed to suspend their long negotiations on a future coalition government to agree to give the acting Prime Minister, the liberal Sophie Wilmès , "special powers" to fight the coronavirus.
"We will move from a government in current affairs to a full-fledged government," but "it will be a government with a limited program," Senate President Liberal Sabine Laruelle said Sunday night.
Laruelle and his lower house counterpart Patrick Dewael announced a "10 democratic parties" agreement - all except the Flemish far-right Vlaams Belang and the radical left of the Belgian Labor Party.
King Felipe must now give his approval to that agreement, which will then be submitted to a vote of confidence in the Belgian parliament on Thursday to support the principle of these exceptional and limited powers, explained the head of the Senate.
The spread of the coronavirus in this country of 11 million inhabitants, where there are 886 confirmed cases of contagion and 4 deaths, forced the parties to unblock the political crisis that began with the fall of the previous government in December 2018.
Since then, a government in current affairs has managed the country. The May 2019 elections did not help redirect the situation, as they further fragmented the political landscape and deepened the differences between the north and south of the country.
"The urgency currently is to guarantee that we can attend to each affected person as they should," said Laruelle, who mentioned, among other measures, the possible purchase of protection material , as well as support for businesses affected by the closings.
Wilmès, at the head of the government since October, would have three months of special powers, which will allow him to avoid the long legislative procedure, a renewable period depending on the evolution of the pandemic.
In 2009, then Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy also benefited from "special powers" to fight the pandemic of influenza A (H1N1).
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