2007–08 Belgian government formation partition of Belgium. On November 6, the formation talks became the longest in Belgian history. When the Parliament confirmed the formation of an interim Government, it had been 196 days since the Belgian people had voted out the previous coalition. It was the second longest formation period in European history, after the Dutch record of 208 days in 1977. Talks were interrupted twice by the resignation of the "formateur", which left the political parties waiting for a new appointment by the King. Guy Verhofstadt was appointed as mediator on December 3, with the task not only of looking into the
2010 North Rhine-Westphalia state election were exhausted, the SPD and Greens formed a minority coalition which was affirmed by the Landtag on July 14, 2010, and Kraft succeeded Rüttgers as Minister-President. The final composition of the ultimate government coalition took two months to determine. Neither of the traditional coalitions (SPD-Green or CDU-FDP) has sufficient numbers to command a majority, so the most likely results according to analysts are a grand coalition, a coalition between the left-of-centre parties, or a coalition between the SPD, Greens and the FDP. On May 15, 2010, the FDP declined an offer from the SPD and the Greens to enter talks,