Dear AmCham Members, Partners and Friends,
As you read this AmCham digital Newsletter, I am eating breakfast in Lisbon, Portugal before joining a day of discussions with the Chairmen and CEOs of 57 AmCham’s from across Europe at a week-long AmCham Europe Best Practice Sharing Conference held this time of year every year. I have been here since Monday afternoon discussing and sharing information on our common concerns of business and expat family topics.
We are lucky in the AmCham community to have this partnership alliance with our European colleagues and friends (and with representatives from Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkey and Israel as well). All of us are working hard to ensure the prosperity of our individual countries and to promote beneficial connectivity between ourselves, and with the United States. There are three or four of these gatherings every year, at least two in Brussels at our AmCham affiliated with the EU commission, and one or two elsewhere around Europe.
While our principal focus at AmCham.lu is ensuring Luxembourg government policy is expat company- and employee-friendly, we treasure these external gatherings for sharing perceptions, ideas and reinforcing our common shared values.
That said, the weather has been up and down here in Lisbon and I will be happy to get back home tomorrow to Luxembourg!
Last week, before coming here, I had in-person meetings with our Deputy Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, and our Minister of Environment, Serge Wilmes, to discuss issues impacting the international business community, gave a breakfast presentation (and copies of our Doing Business in Luxembourg book) to 75 visiting Brazilian businessmen considering to relocate part of their wealth and open businesses in Luxembourg, attended an excellent British Irish film festival screening managed by Geoff Thompson, attended an anniversary reception hosted by Darren Robinson and joined the AmCham “Indian Summer” BBQ very kindly hosted by Thierry Flies and his company Schroeder & Associés.
I particularly want to call out with my compliments Thierry Flies and present him and his company as a strong role model on how to run a good company with a wise employee focus and how, by so doing, benefit the corporate bottom line. Schroeder & Associates is located in Kockelscheuer at the back of an industrial park with a big forest directly behind them. Being industrial engineers who focus on real estate related projects, they have built for themselves a very nice headquarters building with several things standing out. First, their air quality inside the building is excellent, something I often find missing in newer buildings. Second, being located in a semi-remote location with no adjacent restaurants, they have made a special effort to build a generously-sized cafeteria which is very well suited as an event location, with outside connection to multiple covered eating tables… accompanied by an excellent staff of cooks and servers. In short, they appear to have appropriately prioritized employee happiness and well-being, believing that by so doing they are also generating a benefit to their bottom line. More smart companies should do the same!
Interestingly COMO, the new, upcoming digital quasi bank project, is located right next door, and also has made plans for ensuring a great internal environment for staff and even a balcony food garden! I think these two companies, both AmCham Members, will find good synergies together…
Our feature article presentation this week has three contributing authors. The topic they explore is explaining the legal revision and consequences associated with eliminating the work permit application requirement for accompanying expat spouses of expat work permit holders living in Luxembourg. As a result of this change, which we in AmCham strongly advocated for when the subject was being discussed at the Chamber of Deputies, Luxembourg now has the very best policy approach and regulatory regime of any European country with regards to work permission for expat spouses. We are very proud of this change, which eliminates all of the working permission barriers for several thousand expats, mostly women, who are spouses. Please read the three articles written by Laurent Peusch, Head of the Employers Services at ADEM, Sylvie Schmit, Managing Director of European Relocation Services and Virginie Todesco, Immigration Assistant Manager at Fragomen, each sharing their positive appreciation and points of view from slightly different perspectives…
Also in this Newsletter, please see the update of our upcoming events which offer you an even richer tapestry of interesting opportunities for information and networking!
Lately, I have had an increasing number of persons asking me if they can help. We are always happy to have more people active in our committees (please talk with Daniel and Sonja about this!) Of course, we very much appreciate the help of our members to connect us to interesting people who are not yet AmCham Newsletter readers or active AmCham members. While we are a solid and strong organization, there is always room for more persons and companies of the right qualities. So thank you for asking, and please help us to make those connections!
I look forward to seeing you all again soon and send my respect and very best wishes,
Paul Schonenberg
Chairman and CEO
AmCham.lu
