Socialist leader makes last-ditch effort to save split nation

AFP - Weeks after being asked to form a government to lead rudderless Belgium, Socialist leader Elio Di Rupo unveiled a radical plan Monday to slash the budget and devolve power in the language-split nation.

Di Rupo, asked seven weeks ago by King Albert II to form a government in a country that has been without one for more than a year, said in a much-anticipated 80-minute speech that he hoped "to redraw the political map of the 21st century".

"I hope that will be possible," he said.

Di Rupo, whose Socialist party led the field in the French-speaking south in June 2010 elections that failed to produce an outright majority, called for a 22-billion-euro ($32 billion) cut in public spending by 2015 and extra power to the regions -- a key demand from leaders of Dutch-speaking northern Flanders.

The other big winner at last year's general election was the separatist Flemish N-VA party, headed by hardliner Bart De Wever.

Successive efforts to form a workable coalition, notably gathering French leftwingers and Flemish liberals, have broken down repeatedly over the past year, with Albert II naming a succession of special negotiators who all returned to the palace empty-handed.

Di Rupo said in a nationally-televised press conference that he hoped to see the country's nine biggest parties respond to the plan by Thursday evening.

A new government could be put together "very quickly", he said, ending a political crisis that has seen Belgium earn the dubious record as the country that has been without a government longest.

With Belgian debt at almost 100 percent of GDP, Di Rupo called for cuts in unemployment benefits, health spending and pensions, and a freeze on budgets, with the exception of spending on justice and the police.

He pledged to create a quarter of a million jobs by 2015 and enforce a temporary wealth tax to reap 1.25 million euros up until 2015.

Turning to the divide between the country's 6.2 million Dutch speakers and 4.5 million francophones, the Socialist leader called for new devolution to regional and community authorities, which would be the sixth administrative reform in the country in 40 years.

Those institutions would receive an extra 17.3 billion euros, notably to run employment policies, and would be given greater powers to raise taxes.

After years of bitter inter-communal strife over the rights of French-speakers in six districts that ring majority-French Brussels but lie in Flanders, Di Rupo ceded ground to Flemish hardliners.

He suggested the right to vote for French parties be limited to French-speakers only in those districts.

But he also suggested the creation of a "national" electorate that would strengthen Belgium's federal structure. That electorate would have 10 seats elected by the entire country.

Brussels, which boasts a strong majority of French-speakers though geographically located in Flanders, would receive supplementary funds of 460 million euros to overcome its financial troubles.