Luxembourg

Luxembourg
Capital city	Luxembourg City
Location	Europe
Leader	Prime Minister of Luxembourg
Type	nation state
Member of	European Defence Union, European Union, Eurozone, International Criminal Court, International Energy Agency, La Francophonie, NATO, OECD, UN
Subpage	•Luxembourg/Ambassador •Luxembourg/Deputy Prime Minister •Luxembourg/Prime Minister

Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is a nation state in Western Europe. With an area of 2,586 square kilometers (998 sq mi), it is one of the smallest sovereign states in Europe. In 2019, Luxembourg had a population of 626,108.

HQ for Many International Institutions

Luxembourg has long been a prominent supporter of European political and economic integration. In 1921, Luxembourg and Belgium formed the Belgium-Luxembourg Economic Union (BLEU) to create an inter-exchangeable currency and a common customs regime. Post-war, Luxembourg became a founding member state of the United Nations, and dropped its policy of neutrality to become a founding member state of NATO. Luxembourg expanded its support for European integration, becoming a founding member state of the Benelux Economic Union (today's Benelux Union), and one of the "inner six" founding member states of the three European Communities; the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), and the European Economic Community (EEC). Subsequently, Luxembourg became a founding member state of the European Union (EU) when the EEC and ECSC were incorporated into it in 1993. Luxembourg is a founding member of the Schengen Area, abolishing internal borders amongst its member states, named after the Luxembourg village where the original agreement — since incorporated into EU law — was signed in 1985. At the same time, the majority of Luxembourgers have consistently believed that European unity makes sense only in the context of a strongtransatlantic relationship, and thus have traditionally pursued a pro-NATO, pro-US foreign policy.

Luxembourg is the site of the European Court of Justice, the European Investment Bank, the European Court of Auditors, the secretariat of the European Parliament, the Statistical Office of the European Commission (Eurostat), and other EU bodies.

Operation Gladio

On July 7, 2008 Luxemburg became the 5th country to publish an official report on Operation Gladio in the country. Entitled Rapport de la Commission de Contrôle parlementaire du Service de Renseignement de l'État - Les activités du réseau "Stay behind" luxembourgeois, it was published on the same day as one entitled "Le rôle du service de renseignements dans le cadre des enquêtes relatives à l'affaire des attentats à l'explosif des années 1984 à 1986". (about the Bombers Affair)

The network in small Luxembourg allegedly never consisted of more than 12 agents, who did not know each other. They were individually prepared for their mission in rented houses. Everyday people: farmers, railway workers, civil servants, teachers, craftsmen, housewives, pensioners and also former resistance workers from WW2. In addition to this rather scant relvelation, there seems to have been additional, military, Stay behind groups that were not accounted for.

Gladio was probably involved in the Bombers Affair (Luxembourgish: Bommeleeër Affär) a series of bomb attacks on infrastructure installations and public buildings in the Grand Duchy between May 1984, and April 1986, intended to increase Cold War tensions, because its the population was too passive and indecisive about the communist threat, and to increase suspicions against the left, a standard procedure in these psychological operations.

Full article: the Bombers Affair (Luxembourg)

On November 14, 1990, shortly after the existence of the Stay Behind was revealed, the organization was disbanded. In a letter dated January 10, 1991, Jacques Santer thanked the “anonymous” members for their service. With the letter. Santer guaranteed the members a kind of immunity. In retrospect, the closing all happens quite abruptly, as if he were trying to cover up any traces.

The official mission was that if Warsaw Pact troops marched in, they would have obtained messages from behind enemy lines, smuggled agents in and out and carried out acts of sabotage, such as attacks on people or facilities. The third task allegedly did not apply to Luxembourg.

Before the Constitutional Committee of parliament, Santer, the then head of government also stated that “there are no indications that can confirm that theses agents were implicated om sabotage activities". Thus, the stay-behind agents are relieved of any suspicion of complicity in the Bommeleeër bombing incident. Santer distances himself completely from a stay-behind network based on the Italian model, which was active in paramilitary activities and which has been shown to cooperate with right-wing extremist terrorists. Especially when it came to frightening the population and curbing the popularity of the communist party. Also so-called death lists, lists with people who would have been eliminated in an emergency, did not exist.

Intelligence Services

The Service de Renseignement de l'État (SREL) is Luxembourg's homeland intelligence agency.

In 2008. Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker was recorded without his knowledge in 2008 by the head of his own secret services. According Juncker, Marco Mille recorded this interview using a simple wristwatch, while the two men were discussing certain things, "but in no way related to security issues," added the Prime Minister.

Deeming this practice "unthinkable" and above all "unacceptable", the Prime Minister informed the president of the Parliamentary Control Commission, in charge of the State intelligence service, Charles Goerens. Marco Mille headed the state intelligence services from 2003 to 2010, when he left his post for a position at Siemens, in the private sector.

Economy

The industrial sector, which was dominated by steel until the 1960s, has since diversified to include chemicals, rubber, and other products. During the past decades, growth in the financial sector has more than compensated for the decline in steel production. Services, especially banking and finance, account for the majority of the economic output. Luxembourg is the world's second largest investment fund center (after the United States), the most important private banking center in the Eurozone and Europe's leading center for reinsurance companies. Moreover, the Luxembourg government has aimed to attract Internet startups, with Skype and Amazon being two of the many Internet companies that have shifted their regional headquarters to Luxembourg.

In April 2009, concern about Luxembourg's banking secrecy laws, as well as its reputation as a tax haven, led to its being added to a "gray list" of nations with questionable banking arrangements by the G20. In response, the country soon after adopted OECD standards on exchange of information and was subsequently added into the category of "jurisdictions that have substantially implemented the internationally agreed tax standard".

In March 2010, the Sunday Telegraph reported that most of Kim Jong-Il's $4 billion in secret accounts is in Luxembourg banks, (a dubious allegation on several levels).

Amazon.co.uk also benefits from Luxembourg tax loopholes by channeling substantial UK revenues as reported by The Guardian in April 2012. Luxembourg ranked third on the Tax Justice Network's 2011 Financial Secrecy Index of the world's major tax havens, scoring only slightly behind the Cayman Islands. In 2013, Luxembourg is ranked as the 2nd safest tax haven in the world, behind Switzerland.

In early November 2014, just days after becoming head of the European Commission, the Luxembourg's former Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker was hit by media disclosures—derived from a document leak known as Luxembourg Leaks—that Luxembourg under his premiership had turned into a major European center of corporate tax avoidance.

 

An event carried out

Event	Location	Description
Evacuation from Afghanistan	Afghanistan	The evacuation of foreigners from Afghanistan, one of the largest airlifts in history

 

Event

Event	Description
The Bombers Affair (Luxembourg)	Luxembourg terrorist attacks by the local Gladio stay-behind network

 

Citizens of Luxembourg on Wikispooks

Title	Born	Description
Colette Flesch	16 April 1937	Luxembourgish politician. 3 Bilderbergs
Jean-Pierre Hansen	25 April 1948	Went far to become Vice President of French multinational corporation Suez.
Pierre Jaans		Financial regulator who dealt with BCCI
Jean-Claude Juncker	9 December 1954	Former Prime Minister of Luxembourg and President of the European Commission
Etienne Reuter		Little known Luxembourger "in attendance" at the 1981 Bilderberg.

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