Premiership (2020–2025)
On 23 September 2020, Alexander De Croo and Paul Magnette (PS) were appointed by the King to form a government as a so-called "Vivaldi coalition". On 30 September 2020, it was announced that De Croo would take over the position of prime minister, succeeding Wilmès. De Croo's government has a higher proportion of women ministers than any previous Belgian government: half of the ministers are women.
The formation of the Belgian government took a considerable amount of time. The book De doodgravers van België by Wouter Verschelden states that the main reason for the prolonged negotiations was a scandal about communication between De Croo and an Italian pornographic film actress. In August 2021, Corriere della Sera quoted statements by the implicated actress, claiming that De Croo had messaged her seeking a meeting and that they had not met, but had continued to exchange messages.
In June 2021, he visited the site of the Antwerp building collapse with King Philippe of Belgium and spoke to emergency workers.
In February 2022, the government adopted a law to make the labour market more flexible: employees have the option, provided that their company agrees, of switching to a four-day week. In return, their working days would be extended to 9.5 hours (corresponding to a 38-hour week). The law also makes working hours between 8 p.m. and midnight more flexible, as they are no longer considered as night work and do not give employees entitlement to any compensation.
The government wants to increase military spending to 2 per cent of GDP in order to comply with the demands of NATO and the U.S. government, which is causing tension within its coalition. The right-wing supports the plan, but the ecologists are opposed, arguing that the government should have other priorities than the military, while the socialists remain undecided.
On 26 November 2022, De Croo and foreign minister Hadja Lahbib visited Ukraine, meeting Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and pledging continued Belgian support to Ukraine.
In November 2023, De Croo called the Israeli bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip "disproportionate", but said that "Belgium will not take sides" in the Gaza war. The Israeli government accused him of "supporting terrorism".
On 26 February 2024 DeCroo travelled to Paris, where Emmanuel Macron was holding an emergency summit over the situation in Ukraine, as they had just suffered the loss of Avdiivka. Czech PM Petr Fiala proposed the purchase of 500,000 rounds of artillery ammunition for Volodymyr Zelensky's forces. This was the second time in one month the Czech government had aired the matter. The French had previously vetoed the idea to obtain the ammunition from foreign sources. The Dutch government of Mark Rutte announced, through him on that day in Paris, that it would provide €100 million for this purpose, and De Croo announced that his government would provide €200 million. Fiala managed to attract 15 nations to his cause. The prime minister of Portugal, Antonio Costa, said that the group defence ministers had been tasked with a 7 March deadline to formulate and execute the plan.
Following the release of the 2024 Belgian federal election results, De Croo and his party suffered a major electoral defeat. De Croo, following protocol, announced his resignation as prime minister effective on 10 June. After this, he remained as caretaker prime minister until the formation of a new federal government.
In September 2024, during their welcome addresses for Pope Francis on his visit to the country, De Croo, along with King Philippe, publicly criticised the Catholic Church over sexual abuses committed by clergy in Belgium. On his return flight to Rome, Francis said "abortion is murder" and that "science says that just one month from conception, all the organs are present". He compared the abortion doctors to hitmen. Contemporaneously, Belgium has considered whether to expand access to abortion from the first 12 weeks to 18 weeks. De Croo said he would summon the Belgian apostolic nuncio, Franco Coppola, so as to protest the pope's remarks as an “unacceptable” interference in his country’s domestic affairs.
On 3 February 2025, De Croo was succeeded as prime minister by Bart De Wever, leader of the N-VA and mayor of Antwerp.
