Winners and losers: the ‘Luxembourg Times’ table of 2024

As the year draws to an end, here are some of the highlights of things that happened in the Grand Duchy that you may have missed or forgotten.

Succession of the year

Forget the Murdoch saga, or TV’s Roy family, the real succession story this year was the decision by Grand Duke Henri to grant his eldest son, Guillaume, the title of Lieutenant-Représentant du Grand-Duc (prince regent, in effect).

This paves the way for Henri’s abdication on 3 October next year – he turns 70 in April and will have been on the throne for 25 years, so will probably enjoy his retirement.

Whether Grand Duchess Maria Teresa will enjoy being in the shadow of her daughter-in-law, the future Grand Duchess Stéphanie, remains to be seen.

Runner-up: Former boss of business union UEL Jean-Paul Olinger being named head of the tax office and former Luxembourg for Finance head Nicolas Mackel becoming Luxembourg’s ambassador for the EU were also moves that made headlines as both highly experienced lobbyists are outspoken personalities.

Brand awareness of the year

ING managed to get more headlines in 2024 than most banks could wish to pay for through native advertising campaigns. The banks decision to shutter its retail banking in Luxembourg was met with shock and derision by customers and an investigation into how it was conducting what was labelled a chaotic exit strategy by financial sector regulator CSSF.

The bank continues to sponsor the hallmark ING Night Marathon, which takes place on 31 May next year.

Runner-up: Luxair got into a bit of an unnecessary spat with YouTube content creator Josh Cahill in July over access to its lounge at Luxembourg airport.

Like many YouTube content creators, Cahill’s privileged arrogance probably did not appeal to Luxair staff, but the incident could easily have been avoided with a little more diplomacy from the airline.

Nation branding of the year

Tali put Luxembourg back on the Eurovision map after an absence of 31 years with a performance in Malmö that secured her 13th place in the final – a fine achievement for the then 23-year-old graduate of the International School of Luxembourg.

The very fact that Luxembourg, one of the founding members and a five-time winner, was back in the contest sparked excitement among hardcore Eurovision fans around the world.

Runner-up: Amidst a controversial opening to the Paris Olympic Games, Luxembourg’s team raised a few giggles by apparently facing the wrong way as their boat sailed down the Seine. At least they didn’t fall into the river, which at that stage was still deemed unsuitable for swimming events due to pollution that could give athletes E. coli poisoning.

Taxpayers value for money

The visit of Pope Francis cost the state at least €1.5 million, which works out at over €3,000 a minute for the Pontiff’s rain-soaked eight-hour stay in the Grand Duchy and was more than the €1 million price tag of sending Tali to Malmö.

Over the past decade, successive governments have succeeded in separating the church from the state in what used to be deeply institutional Catholic Luxembourg, but even so opponents claimed that the royal household should have footed the bill because the Pope was here at their invitation.

Runner-up: Around the same amount, €1.6 million, was spent on some 1,100 police bodycams this year. The equipment will be in service in 2025, but it will take some time to figure out whether they increase the Luxembourg police force’s efficiency by the four to six percentage points that the International Criminal Justice Review claims they have done for other forces.

Petition wars

The summer saw a battle to gather signatures both for and against teaching LGBTQ+ subjects in schools. Marc Gerges’ petition calling for more LGBTQ+ and “inclusive” subjects be taught at Luxembourg schools was launched as a counter to a call by Helder Rui De Almeida Neves to ban the subjects.

While the banning petition was quick to gather the 4,500 signatures required for debate in parliament, and won the approval of ADR MP Fred Keup, Gerges’ petition two weeks later also passed the threshold within a few hours of going online.

Gerges’ final total of 10,262 signatures beat the 9,979 people that signed the original petition by Helder Rui De Almeida Neves. Dates have yet to be set for parliamentary hearings.

Runner up: Charles Trufelli’s petition calling for an end to the “exaggerated and constant mania for new petitions” failed to gather the 4,500 signatures required for debate.

Just 117 people found the time to sign his petition, which Trufelli said was motivated by wanting to prevent the Chamber of Deputies petitions page from becoming “a collection of personal frustrations.” Plans are underway, though, to raise the signature threshold from 4,500 to 5,000.

There is power in a union, or not…

Amazon employees in Luxembourg won a battle against the US tech giant’s global decree that all employees had to return to work at the office full-time as of January.

Luxembourg law requires companies with more than 150 employees to consult with its staff representatives before changes in remote working policies. So, Amazon staff in the Grand Duchy will be allowed to continue working under the current home office regime until July, and after that can also work from home one day a week. Workers elsewhere at Amazon were not so lucky.

Runner-up: The unions were not so successful in trying to persuade Caritas staff not to blindly sign contracts with new employer Hëllef um Terrain (Help on the Ground, or HUT) in September. The OGBL claimed staff were being pressured into signing the new contracts without being allowed to consult union representatives. In the end, just two staff did not sign the new contracts.

Falling on deaf ears

ADR MEP Fernand Kartheiser’s brief attempt to hold a speech in Luxembourgish at the European Parliament in October was cut short because it is not one of the 24 official EU languages.

Luxembourgish is the only national language for which no interpreters are available, Kartheiser railed.

“The Luxembourg government must mobilise itself and use the momentum that Luxembourgish has gained at national level to strengthen the role of the language at EU level,” Kartheiser said, playing the UNO reverse card on past complaints by the ADR claiming that Luxembourgish is a dying language.

Runner-up: Iranian-born artist Alborz Teymoorzadeh was refused a residence permit despite appeals from the Luxembourg’s cultural community and institutions to allow him to stay and work in the Grand Duchy.

Following a public outcry, the government suggested there may be a way for him to appeal the decision, but Teymoorzadeh rejected the idea and instead wrote an open letter to Luc Frieden decrying Luxembourg’s mechanical approach in applying the law, saying that art cannot thrive in an environment where bureaucracy overshadows creativity.

Word of the year

Fake president fraud was not on the radar of many people outside the financial security sector before the Caritas scandal. Now everyone in the Grand Duchy is aware of the scam, which involves criminals stealing a company’s funds by manipulating its employees, by pretending to be a CEO or CFO for example, into transferring funds that its bank considers legitimate.

Runner-up: Resilience has been used to describe everything from Luxembourg’s public finances to its military readiness (or lack of it), from its approach to Artificial Intelligence to its food supply chain