Tag: DHL

Belgium Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt on Wednesday set a new end-of-week deadline for regional leaders to agree on a compromise to keep courier company DHL and its thousands of jobs in Belgium. Deputy Prime Minister Laurette Onkelinx said the prime minister wanted a final deal by Friday. “We will take stock of the talks on Friday, and we will continue with bilateral talks until then,” Onkelinx said. Verhofstadt, who was released from the hospital Wednesday after a car crash, was working from home to try to wrap up talks that threaten to bring down his coalition government, officials said. His spokesman Didier Seeuws said the prime minister would continue to work from home “behind the scenes to find a solution.”

Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt was grappling with a political crisis Tuesday caused by DHL’s threats to abandon Brussels airport. DHL’s request to fly hundreds more night flights out of Brussels-Zavantem has the backing of the Flemish regional government and trades unions. The company, the airport’s biggest employer, has threatened to relocate its European hub from Brussels to the German city of Leipzig if its demand is not met. But the Brussels city government is furiously resisting the demand, pointing to the noise and disruption that would be caused over one of Europe’s most densely populated areas. Stuck in the middle is Verhofstadt who is now working overtime to resolve the DHL dispute. Verhofstadt, who has been holding “last-chance talks” since Monday in a bid to find a compromise, was forced to put back a parliamentary statement on DHL from Tuesday afternoon to the evening as his consultations dragged on. The Belgian media has taken to speculating that the Flemish prime minister’s government could even fall over the issue, which has been a hardy perennial of Belgian political debate in recent years.