Dear AMCHAM members, partners and friends,
Last week was very busy for all of us and for the country. After a week of serious internal meetings between the CSV and the DP, Mr. Frieden met with the Grand Duke and briefed him on the good progress being made to form the new government. We are all pleased to hear of this excellent progress and have our fingers very much crossed for a strong outcome that moves the country forward.
At AMCHAM last week, we were involved with three events. First, Tools4Lux, our expat committee, joined with Luxinnovation and Spuerkeess to present to our audience an award-winning digital project of a software developed and recently launched in Luxembourg by two young and high energy entrepreneurs to connect companies looking for temporary staff housing with owners. While this software will not solve all of the housing problems of the country, it is an initiative which will help to efficiently connect some of those in need with some of those who have the housing to provide to businesses and their employees in need.
Our second AMCHAM project was our Trans-Atlantic trade and investment presentation of the 2023 report with the same name prepared by Professor Dan Hamilton and his colleague Joseph Quinlan from Johns Hopkins University working under mandate of the Federation of American Chambers of Commerce in Europe (ACE) with five AMCHAMs, including AMCHAM.lu, collectively paying the cost of the study. The trade event we put on this past week was hosted at mid-day on Wednesday as a conference and lunch by Deloitte with John Psaila, the Deloitte Managing Partner and US Ambassador Thomas Barrett, each giving a powerful introductory explanation of the importance of free trade to Luxembourg and the important contribution this free trade plays to keep the European and US economies sufficiently robust to ensure we live with prosperity in free democracies. Thibaut l’Ortye, Director of Public Affairs at AMCHAM EU, gave an excellent presentation of the report presenting all of the facts and figures of this best in the world economic partnership between Europe and the USA at both a macro Europe to USA level and also at the micro level which acknowledged Luxembourg’s benefit from their partnership with the USA. Please see and read the details on the analysis presented further on in this issue of our newsletter.
Our last event of last week was a co-event with the British Chamber of Commerce at Allen & Overy during which the HR team at Allen & Overy, ably led by Gilles Dall’Agnol, explained all of the rules and requirements for the social election of staff delegates which will take place in March for a five-year mandate in every Luxembourg-based business with more than 15 employees. As this activity happens once every five years, this low frequency of occurrence means that it is easy to forget the rules and get this wrong. We very much appreciate the effort that the Allen & Overy Employment Team has put into this event in collaboration with AMCHAM and BCC making this corporate social responsibility presentation in English to help our companies get this right. Our sincere thanks for this worthwhile information as a public service! Copies of the slides and further information will be published in the Amcham newsletter next week.
Replacing our standard interview this week we are pleased to present an essay compilation identifying the eight things companies have indicated they hope the new Government will do and the two initiatives our Amcham companies seriously hope the new Luxembourg government will not do. We gathered this information via voluntary feedback from within our constituency. What we have gathered appears to us to be balanced, sensible pro-business feedback that serves the concerns of both companies and their employees. We hope you agree and especially welcome any feedback, both positive and negative, to ensure we have gotten this right. Please write to me with your comments! on info@amcham.lu
As always, we also promote our upcoming events, our member benefits club program and provide you with a delicious food recipe. We hope you will enjoy our weekly digital news magazine and encourage your friends to sign up to receive it as well.
We wish you continued success and hope you have a good weekend.
Our very best wishes,
Paul
Paul Schonenberg
Chairman and CEO
AMCHAM.lu
