Principles of Schengen should not be compromised, Frieden tells Von der Leyen
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen during a visit to Luxembourg on Monday met with Prime Minister Luc Frieden who warned against a disintegration of the Schengen area.
Unlike many of her German compatriots who commute across the border to Luxembourg for work, Ursula von der Leyen was probably not stuck in a traffic jam when she arrived in Luxembourg on Monday morning for the swearing in of the next European Commission.
Germany on 16 September extended temporary border checks first introduced during the Euro 2024 football championship. The measure to stem illegal migration into the country and stop human smugglers is due to expire after six months but Interior Minister Nancy Faeser has already announced Germany would seek to extend the checks.
Luxembourg finishes year with €317 million surplus
State revenues from taxes continued to grow last year and Finance Minister Gilles Roth is “cautiously optimistic” about the Grand Duchy’s financial situation.
Luxembourg ended the year with a surplus of €317 million, which, although temporary as some expenditures for 2024 have not yet been attributed – and could result in a final deficit of around €300 million for the year, according to ministry estimates – represents “a significant improvement of €948 million” compared to the previous year, the ministry said on Tuesday.
In December 2023, the government reported a provisional deficit of €630 million.
The improved situation can be attributed to a favourable trend in state revenues.
SES borrows big from EIB to power expanding satellite cloud
Luxembourg satellite powerhouse SES borrowed €125 million from the European Investment Bank to continue expanding its lower-orbit, faster-response O3b mPOWER constellation, the company said on Tuesday, just days after repaying €100 million of earlier debt.
Besides helping SES to finance its expansion plans, the EIB loan is designed to extend the company’s ability to represent the EU in the building space race in which increasing amounts of military, commercial and locational data are channelled through satellites.
The borrowed money should allow SES to launch three more O3b mPOWER satellites into medium-earth orbits 8,000 km from the ground and target remote sites in Africa, Asia and Latin America, SES said in a statement. SES has already launched eight of the 13 O3b mPOWER spacecraft already planned and financed.
CSSF fines former subsidiary of Fuchs & Associés almost €700,000
Luxembourg investment firm Funds Avenue has been fined almost €700,000 by the country’s financial regulator for compliance gaps in its governance, just a year after its former subsidiary had its licence to operate revoked.
The firm was fined €696,547 by the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) in December 2024 following an inspection carried out between June and September 2023, the regulator said in a statement published on its website on Thursday.
Funds Avenue changed its name from Fuchs Asset Management in September 2023 and has since changed its ownership, the company told the Luxembourg Times. Fuchs Asset Management was previously the subsidiary company of Fuchs & Associés Finance, which was placed into liquidation in July 2023, a week after it was stripped of its licence to operate by the CSSF.
Fuchs & Associés Finance was fined a total of more than €2.2 million in three separate sanctions between 2022 and 2024 related to a host of breaches, including market abuse and gaps in compliance with anti-money laundering rules.
EU’s visitor centres under review months after Luxembourg launch
The future of the EU’s visitor information centres is under review, despite the hub in Luxembourg’s Kirchberg area attracting over 1,000 visitors every week since it opened in the middle of last year and awaiting its official inauguration on Thursday.
The first Europa Experience centre was opened in Berlin in 2016, and aims to better educate citizens on how the EU works, with activities including interactive displays, role play games and presentations.
Although free of charge for visitors, the initiative has come at a huge cost to EU taxpayers and has since spread to just over half of the EU’s 27 countries, despite a plan to roll out the project across the bloc. The total number of visitors reached over 3.6 million by the end of 2024, although some sites have proven more popular than others.