Belgium’s federal Prime Minister, Bart De Wever, is not your average European leader. A conservative intellectual with a sharp tongue and a taste for historical analogy, he is perhaps the only European statesman to cite Edmund Burke more readily than Brussels regulations. A long-serving mayor of Antwerp – one of Europe’s great port cities – and leader of the moderate nationalist New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), De Wever stitched together a national coalition after topping the 2024 federal elections.
The alliance includes both centre-right and centre-left parties, drawn from both of Belgium’s major linguistic blocs – no small feat in a country that barely speaks to itself. De Wever brings to the job a sardonic sense of humour, a historian’s depth, and a coalition-builder’s patience. Now, he’s turning his attention to one of Europe’s most intractable crises: unchecked immigration.
Though a Flemish nationalist – and secessionist – at heart, De Wever has long edged into the mainstream of Belgian politics. He speaks fluent French in public and now addresses Walloon audiences, even joining their national celebrations. But the symbolism only goes so far: De Wever has pointedly avoided certain events on Belgium’s national day, and declined to say ‘Vive la Belgique!’ when prompted by the country’s French-speaking state broadcaster. In Belgium, language is politics.
That reluctance may seem odd for a man tasked with holding the country together, but it is electorally strategic. De Wever’s real battle is not just against the left or other centrists, but against the hard-right Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest, formerly Vlaams Blok), who view him as insufficiently radical. His voters, hard-won and sometimes even on loan, must never mistake him for a Belgian patriot. Instead, he prefers to speak about the advancement of both the Flemish and Walloon regions – conveniently, the constitutional role of a Belgian prime minister.
Meanwhile, De Wever’s government has hit the ground running. On defence, Belgium is belatedly inching towards Nato’s spending targets, lifting its military budget from a languid 1.3 per cent of GDP. On welfare, cuts to Belgium’s generous and prolonged unemployment benefits are aimed not just at saving up to €2 billion, but at pushing the people back into the labour market. New fiscal measures aim to stimulate businesses and the self-employed. De Wever’s coalition also agreed to shut down the Senate of the country’s parliament by 2029, transferring most of its tasks to the Chamber of Representatives.
On Europe, De Wever styles himself a ‘Eurorealist’. He opposes a Brussels superstate but supports a well-functioning single market, a united front against Russia, and serious reform of the EU’s asylum system. Here, his ideas are bold. The Australian model is his North Star: asylum seekers should be processed outside Europe, in ‘third countries,’ and barred from claiming rights upon illegal entry.
Indeed, under De Wever’s watch, Belgium has unveiled what he proudly calls ‘the strictest migration policy ever’ – with curtailed rights for refugees, tougher residency rules, stricter language and integration tests, and tighter limits on family reunification. And he is not going it alone. A bloc of like-minded governments – including Germany, Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom– is forming around his Eurorealist stance.
The legal foundations, however, remain a minefield. De Wever’s core objection is to the current interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights, which he argues was never intended as a backdoor for mass migration. ‘It was written in an era of closed borders and Cold War,’ he said recently, ‘and meant to protect a Russian ballerina fleeing through the Iron Curtain – not to open a migrant highway to Europe.’
To that end, De Wever commissioned a legal opinion from Marc Bossuyt – former judge and grand éminence of Belgian constitutional law – on how to navigate, reinterpret, or eventually amend the relevant treaties. Bossuyt’s suggestions include pushing for judicial restraint in Strasbourg, and even nominating less activist judges. Unsurprisingly, the Council of Europe was less than thrilled. But the battle for the ECHR is only just beginning, and mind you, Australia’s model was possible because it is of course not part of the Convention.
Whether De Wever can deliver on his ambitions remains to be seen. His governing style is not revolutionary but evolutionary: piecemeal reform, patient coalition-building, and Burkean caution. Indeed, were he alive today, Edmund Burke might well nod in approval – although with one caveat. Burke was no fan of secession. He regarded it as dangerously destabilising. Reform, for him, was a matter of conserving what works, not dismantling it.
And here lies the paradox – some would say genius – of Bart De Wever: a man using Burkean means to pursue nationalist ends. His confederal vision for Belgium – two self-governing regions with minimal federal glue – is a soft break-up in all but name. Though delivered with civility and constitutionalism, the direction of travel is unmistakable.
Yet, recent opinion polls suggest De Wever is again losing ground to Vlaams Belang. To hardline Flemish nationalists who want outright secession, he will never move fast enough. To voters fed up with immigration, the Burkean approach may be too slow to grasp. But De Wever has beaten the far right before – and stole their thunder decisively in 2024, after trailing them for months.
He is, in short, the man to watch – in Flanders, in Belgium, and perhaps in Europe too.
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