BRUSSELS (AFP) -- Flemish Christian Democrat Herman Van Rompuy was appointed Belgium's new prime minister Tuesday, the royal palace announced, less than two weeks after his predecessor resigned amid a banking scandal.

""The king held an audience this afternoon at the Laeken palace with Herman Van Rompuy, and named him prime minister,"" the palace statement said.
Soon afterwards King Albert II swore in the new cabinet, members of the same five-party coalition which folded earlier in the month.
The move to form a new government came 11 days after Prime Minister Yves Leterme, a fellow Flemish Christian Democrat, stepped down in the so-called ""Fortisgate"" scandal, with his aides accused of trying to influence a court case linked to the break-up of the major bank Fortis.
The new government was formed after Van Rompuy had held discussions with the five parties of the outgoing coalition: Flemish Christian Democrats and Liberals and French-speaking Christian Democrats along with Liberals and Socialists from Brussels and the southern Wallonia region.
The new government is expected largely to continue the program of Leterme's administration.
However its life expectancy remains uncertain because of the persistent tensions between the Flemish and francophone parties, which mirror wider problems for federal Belgium.
Regional elections due to be held in June could increase those tensions.
Among the personnel changes Christian Democrat Guido de Padt will take over as interior minister from Flemish Liberal Patrick Dewael.
Karel De Gucht keeps the foreign minister's post he held in the previous administration.
Van Rompuy, until now speaker of the lower house of parliament, was given the job of forming a government by the king on Sunday.
A moderate Christian Democrat from Belgium's Flemish-speaking northern region of Flanders, he has long shied away from the job of premier.
He had affirmed -- as late as this weekend -- that he would never accept the post, but now has to handle one of the kingdom's worst-ever political crises.
""My name is being cited once again as the new prime minister, but I do not consider myself indispensable,"" the 61-year-old political veteran told the Saturday edition of Flemish daily De Standaard.
Elected in June 2007, Leterme quit along with his government on December 19 amid allegations that his aides had sought to influence a court ruling related to the break-up of Fortis bank.
But 48-year-old Christian Democrat Leterme had never managed to ease differences between Belgium's French-speaking community and Flemish-speakers in the north, who insist that any new cabinet should start handing more powers to the three regions, which include the Brussels area.
A top Belgian judge said on December 19 that he had ""strong indications,"" but no legal proof, that Leterme's aides tried to influence the court.
One of Van Rompuy's first tasks will be to guide the 2009 budget through parliament.
An economist by training, he was the budget minister from 1993 to 1999 in the government of prime minister Jean-Luc Dehaene.