OGBL and LCGB have been calling for it for months, as have the CGFP, the Chamber of Commerce, the UEL business association and the opposition party LSAP since last week at the latest and since yesterday also the governing party DP: The convening of the “Comité de coordination tripartite” so that the government and social partners can look for solutions to the energy crisis, which threatens to drive up inflation and further slow down the economic growth that has been sparse for four years. Unemployment in Luxembourg is at its highest in ten years (excluding the Covid year of 2020), and fewer than 1,000 new jobs were created in the private sector in 2025. “Et geet ëm d’Kafkraaft vun de Leit, et geet drëms, fir de Chômage ze reduce, et geet drëms, that this operator makes competitive sense,” said DP Minister Yuriko Backes on RTL Radio on Monday, justifying her party’s call for a tripartite. “I have to think about it better,” said Backes, but after all it was the prime minister who called the tripartite.
Luc Frieden is no friend of the Tripartite. He lacks the patience and the government now lacks the money for days-long negotiations, which often end with the state providing financial help to citizens and companies. Last year, during the social conflict over collective agreements and pensions, he rejected the Tripartite, arguing that it was a crisis instrument and that Luxembourg was not in a crisis. Now, as the crisis deepens, he points to the coalition agreement, according to which a tripartite will be called if several index tranches are triggered per year. Officially, the Statec currently only provides for a tranche in the second trimester. The statistics office plans to publish an estimate of the annual inflation rate in ten days. It is quite possible that another tranche will be due this year.
Luc Frieden currently has other problems. He has been under political pressure since the autumn polls, when he fell out of the top ten most popular politicians and his party lost four percent and the same number of seats. At the CSV congress a month ago, more than one in ten delegates doubted that he was the right “captain” to navigate through troubled waters “the biggest thing, that much history.” If he wants to become CSV’s top candidate again next year, Frieden has to get his party and himself out of the polls. Since last week, the Prime Minister and the other CSV elected officials have been touring all four electoral districts with the “CSV am Dialog” event series. In April and May, Ilres will be conducting on behalf of RTL and Word Election and opinion polls.
The prime minister and his party have appeared isolated for some time. Not only do they antagonize civil society and the opposition, but patronage and coalition partners are increasingly stabbing them in the back. The election campaign for the DP has long since begun. The Liberals are no longer satisfied with the role of junior partner. At the Center Congress in Bonneweg four weeks ago, MP and “Stater” Alderman Corinne Cahen said that “de Xavier” had already proven more than once that he was the right person when it came to bringing people together and moving the country forward. Bettel is currently doing this a lot abroad, but she is of the opinion that “I need Xavier a lot.” That’s why the first point on the program is already clear for the DP: “That’s why Xavier doesn’t need to be sent to the Minister of State,” said Cahen.
As prime minister, Xavier Bettel avoided the Tripartites for years. He only discovered it the year before the last chamber elections. At the first one in the spring, the OGBL mutinied because of the postponement of an index tranche. All unions signed the second agreement in autumn, as did the one in March 2023. The DP emerged as the biggest winner in the chamber elections five months later.
