Little Luxembourg makes a big impact

Date: 03/06/1999

As the rulers of the EU's most pro-integrationist country campaign to win an extension to their 15-year reign in the Grand Duchy's general election next week, they know their days as a Union 'player' are numbered. Tim Jones explains why

NONE punch above their weight in the EU ring more than the Luxembourgers.

Imagine if Belfast, Nantes or Bremen had 2.3&percent; of total voting power in the Union's Council of Ministers, and also the ability to veto any legislation they believed to threaten their municipal interests and the right to appoint a European Commissioner.

It is hardly any wonder that politicians in the Grand Duchy - a mere 84-by-52 kilometres with a population of 430,000 - resemble rabbits caught in car headlights as they prepare to fight general and European elections next week.

The coincidence of the elections tells its own story. They have been held on the same day ever since direct elections to the European Parliament began in 1979 and the campaigns for both are the same.

This year, Jean-Claude Juncker's Social Christian Party (PSC), which has shared power with the Luxembourg Socialist Workers' Party (PSOL) for the past 15 years, is campaigning on the slogan: “Strong for Luxembourg, strong for Europe”.

Unlike in other countries, where a spot on the list of potential MEPs is seen as a second-class option, Luxembourg's politicians fight for a place in Strasbourg as though it means something. Next week's election lists are led by outgoing European Commission President Jacques Santer for the PSC and Foreign Minister Jacques Poos for the PSOL.

Sadly for these men, in European terms, the only way for Luxembourg to go is down. They know better than anyone that the extraordinary political clout accumulated by this trilingual enclave is an accident of history which can never be repeated.

Unlike Switzerland, to which the Grand Duchy is often unfairly compared, Luxembourg was a major theatre during the war which led inexorably to the founding of the European Communities. The country was occupied by German forces and the famous Battle of the Bulge tank fight took place as much in the Grand Duchy as in the Belgian Ardennes.

Couched between Germany and France, home to a rich iron-ore seam and linked to the Dutch-Belgian trade powerhouse through the Benelux union, Luxembourg became a player in the trail-blazing European Coal and Steel Community.

When qualified majority voting was first developed and votes were handed out, it did not matter much that Luxembourg was given two and Germany, France and Italy ten, even though the Grand Duchy only had 0.7&percent; or less of its bigger neighbours' population. It was only when the Communities expanded to bring in the Danes and the Irish - 8 million people between them - and gave them a trifling three votes apiece that Luxembourg's position was shown to be nonsense.

During the last Intergovernmental Conference to rewrite the Union's treaties in 1996-97, the Luxembourgers managed to fend off attempts to shrink the 20-member Commission and give extra voting powers to big countries. They know it will not be so easy next time.

The forthcoming IGC, which is due to begin under the Portuguese presidency in the first half of next year, will be focusing solely on these issues to prepare the institutions for a Union of up to 26 members. There will be nowhere to hide in this IGC.

LUXEMBOURGERS' voting power is only part of the story. The capital city, home to one quarter of the population, is bulging with EU institutions.

For reasons that pass understanding, the EU's publications office Eurostat, the Commission's Directorate-General for credits and investments, the general secretariat of the European Parliament, the Court of Justice, the European Investment Bank and the Court of Auditors are all two hours down the motorway from Brussels. In one of those bizarre Euro-deals, it is also accepted that ministerial meetings are held in Luxembourg every April, June and October rather than in Brussels.

Just by being fluent in French or German without actually being French or German, Luxembourg politicians have managed to win friends and influence people. No other country has had two Commission presidents (Gasthon Thorn and Santer) over the past 20 years, and it was former Premier Pierre Werner who drew up the first plan for a single currency union three decades ago.

Under the wing of the Union's political colossus of the Nineties, Helmut Kohl, Juncker became a player like none of his predecessors. Now only 44, he chaired his first EU ministerial meeting at the ripe old age of 30 and was already well-known on the European Christian Democratic circuit.

By the end of Kohl's reign, there was nobody he trusted more than Juncker, and the Luxembourger was used as a go-between by the German leader and his impossible-to-understand French counterpart Jacques Chirac.

According to the polls, Juncker's coalition is safe. The most recent survey published in Le Tageblatt newspaper puts Juncker well ahead of his rivals, followed by his Socialist ministers Alex Bodry (planning and sport) and Robert Goebbels (economic affairs). They are hardly a threat since the Socialist Workers' Party long ago became a defender of the EU's most potent tax haven.

The real opposition leader, Democratic Party chairwoman Lydie Polfer - mayor of Luxembourg city and a former MEP - finds it hard to differentiate her party from those of her rivals, since she has gone along with the lion's share of the Juncker government's programme.

Nature hates a vacuum and a number of fringe parties are emerging, including Le Contribuable/De Steierzueler ('the taxpayer') and a Parti du troisième àge/Partei vum 3 Alter for pensioners who believe they have never had it so bad.

The biggest fear among the political class is the emergence of a mass anti-immigrant movement; a big problem considering 35&percent; of the entire population is foreign. Admittedly, most are EU nationals and 60,000 are Portuguese alone, but the campaign to find temporary homes for Albanian Kosovars has stirred latent resentment against foreigners.

” Luxembourg has been flooded by thousands of Kosovars and we do not have room any more to give them beds,” says Luxembourg Christian Democrat MEP Viviane Reding. “We have the highest per-capita percentage of asylum-seekers in Europe. It is very unpopular at the moment to defend asylum-seekers and even young people have a tendency to fear foreigners. I foresee a catastrophe in Luxembourg.”