Belgian MPs back new government

Herman Van Rompuy says the economy is the priority

New Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy has received the backing of parliament in a vote of confidence.

Mr Van Rompuy was appointed on Wednesday and has assembled much the same cabinet that served under his predecessor Yves Leterme.

Mr Leterme's government collapsed after he resigned on 19 December amid a scandal over the rescue of Fortis bank.

The new government must deal with the fallout from that, as well as impending recession and a continuing ethnic rift.

Parliament voted for the new government by 88 votes to 45, with no abstentions.

The five-party coalition in government is the same as under the previous prime minister, and Mr Van Rompuy has promised to start out by sticking to his policies.

"The government's top priority is overcoming the economic crisis," he said.

Mr Van Rompuy, 61, had long resisted taking the premiership, but is seen as a safe pair of hands, after successfully cracking down on public debt as budget minister in the 1990s, says the BBC's Oana Lungescu in Brussels.

He is an old-style Belgian politician, favouring compromise over confrontation, but he will need all his skills of negotiation to keep this new government together beyond regional elections due later this year, our correspondent says.

That is when Belgium's perennial divisions between the Dutch-speaking Flemish and French-speaking Walloons will come to the fore.