BRUSSELS • Flemish nationalists have threatened to pull out of Belgian Prime Minister’s Yves Leterme’s troubled government coalition by the end of the month, the press in Brussels reported yesterday.

The New Flemish Alliance (NVA) said current emergency negotiations with the Francophone parties of the Belgium’s south were “the last chance” or they would withdraw their support.

“This is the last chance,” Bart De Wever, chairman of the NVA, told Le Soir newspaper.

“Francophones must tell us how they see things. Then there’s either an accord, and it’s all over, or there is no accord, and the majority (coalition) cannot continue.”

The NVA was quite willing to become an opposition party, he added.

Leterme angrily dismissed the NVA threat as an “ultimatum”, Belgium’s newspapers reported.

The warning from the NVA came after a week of political crisis in Belgium, which has already seen the PM offer the king his resignation only to have it refused.

Flanders, Belgium’s Dutch-speaking northern half, has long sought more regional powers to reflect its prosperity. It also resents subsidising the less affluent, French-speaking Wallonia region to its south.

Instead of accepting Leterme’s resignation, the king has instructed three senior politicians, the so-called “wise men”, to try to find a a solution to Flemish demands for greater autonomy and federal reform.

They must report back by July 31.

Leterme has been trying to solve the country’s political crisis since March, when he took office for a third try at forming a government after nine months following the June 2007 elections when Belgium was without a formal government.

In the months before he took the post, analysts were even suggesting the country was on the brink of splitting between its richer Flemish north and poorer French-speaking south.