Dear AmCham members, partners and friends,
Welcome to your AmCham Newsletter edition 175! We most sincerely hope you all have had a good Easter weekend break!
I express our sincere condolences to our Luxembourg Cardinal Hollerich and all members of the Catholic faith for the passing of Pope Francis on Easter Monday morning. He will be remembered for his kindness and his tireless dedication and advocacy for the poor, downtrodden and all peoples suffering and in need.
We have a special focus for this issue of our Newsletter.
While some of you might know, many of you are not fully aware that the European Commission rotates the Presidency of the European Union every six months from one member nation to the next. Under these rules, Poland has had the honor and privilege to hold this Presidency since the start of January 2025 and will be relinquishing this mandate to Denmark at the end of June 2025.
We have decided and are very pleased to honor Poland with our thanks to their government and people for their sacrifice and service during a very challenging period impacting the lives and prosperity for people and companies all across Europe. This Newsletter issue includes therefore the recommendation of the AmChams of Europe to the Polish Presidency, a photo and copy of the speech by the Polish Minister for European Union to the Annual AmChams of Europe Transatlantic Trade and Investment conference which I attended some weeks ago in Brussels, an interview with the new Chargé d’Affaires a.i. at the Polish Embassy here in Luxembourg, AmCham Poland’s contribution to AmCham Luxembourg’s newsletter, prepared on the occasion of the ongoing Polish Presidency of the EU Council. “View from Poland: a Transatlantic Presidency?”, an article and photos concerning the recent Polish cooking day at the Hotel and Restaurant School in Diekirch and a recipe with photos for the preparation of one of the most famous Polish traditional foods, Pierogi. We hope you appreciate and enjoy this collection of Polish news and information!
Accompanying this special feature, we are pleased to share with you a collection of must-read news from the Luxembourg government, our members, partners, friends (and ourselves!) which we believe you will find both useful and interesting.
On 03 April, we were please to be hosted by A&O Shearman for an event about Fund Tokenization: exploring the future of Luxembourg. This was by the way the first event from our Amcham Digital committee. Please view the pictures on the event report.
Tonight on 24 April, we will have the pleasure again to be hosted by A&O Shearman for an event about Talent Attraction and Retention Conference, Fresh Spin to a Known Topic! There are still seats open if you wish to attend but you need to be quick!
Last but not least, we will have our AWD (After Work Drink) on 25 April with Art-Management on 20 May, at the Portus Data Centers Luxembourg in Gasperich.” with space limited. Look out for the announcement on our website.
Please read and enjoy!
Many of us were taken aback to read in the US media outlet Politico an article indicating that the US government was considering closing the US Embassy in Luxembourg, along with three consulates in France, three in Germany, two in the United Kingdom and seven other US embassies in Africa and the middle east. To be clear, we in AmCham.lu do not think the closure of our US Embassy in Luxembourg is a good idea and we have said words to that effect both privately and publicly in an interview published last week in the Luxembourg Times, during which I indicated we in AmCham.lu planned to organize our thoughts into a letter to send to President Trump, his senior government officials and other persons of influence. The AmCham Executive Committee and I have worked hard organizing this serious letter which we have sent to President Trump, his senior team and others. We look forward to publishing this letter in your next AmCham Newsletter, welcome your reaction and hope for a positive response from those with whom we have shared our advocacy analysis and arguments.
In the meantime, we thank all of you who are members and encourage those of you who are not members to contact us (Paul@amcham.lu) so we can arrange to meet together to further discuss your joining and benefiting from being members of our family!
With respect and kindest regards,
Paul Schonenberg
Chairman and CEO
AmCham.lu