Luxembourg, the surprising indicative country for our entrepreneurs

Flemish Prime Minister Jan Jambon (N-VA) and a business delegation went on a working visit to Luxembourg on Monday and Tuesday. The Grand Duchy is seen as an example in various economic fields such as wage policy, financial technology and space travel.

with the media Things didn’t always go well, but Flemish Prime Minister Jan Jambon was received with great respect during his two-day working visit to Luxembourg, along with 40 entrepreneurs (including Foca, Emek, Deloitte and the Port of Antwerp).

“Flanders and Luxembourg want to cooperate more, especially in the economic field,” Gambon says. “Obviously we can’t quite compare Luxembourg with Flanders, but there are a number of similarities. It is also not very large, it has an open economy, it is centrally located in Europe and, like Flanders, depends on innovation. There is a favorable business climate.”

index jump

While the controversy over the wage index in Belgium led to a war of attitudes, the Luxembourg government was able to negotiate a deal with employers and two trade unions at the end of last month. “Pact of Solidarity” Including the postponement of the wage index planned for August until 2023. Thus, a jump in the index is a taboo for Belgian trade unions.

“We can learn something from Luxembourg. The only country that also has automatic indexing like us, but amendments can still be negotiated with social partners and government,” says Paul Sweety, former top man at Agoria Technologies, on LinkedIn.

Luxembourg is capitalizing on its historical position as a banking hub to become a European center for financial technology (fintech). Meanwhile, the list maintained by the innovation center Lhoft (Luxembourg House of Fintech) is impressive.

space travel

Perhaps most surprisingly, space travel has also been a focus of Luxembourg’s business since the 1980s. Gambon and colleagues visited Société Européenne des Satellites (SES), which they say is the largest operator of commercial satellites worldwide. Luxembourg also wants to position itself as a leader in space mining and is the first European country to actually have legislation on the extraction and use of raw materials from space.

Flanders, which made 11 million euros available for a program on the space economy, hopes to be able to play a role in space, but it has some work to do. Platform area of ​​Flanders Founded only last year.

Thus, Luxembourg’s close neighbors have a few decades ahead. According to Gambon, Flanders and Luxembourg should strengthen relations, especially in the field of innovation, he said after a conversation with Prime Minister Xavier Bettel.

(fjc)