(L-R) Claude Wiseler, the new President of the Chamber of Deputies (Luxembourg's parliament); Roberta Metsola, President of the European Parliament; Credit: © European Union 2024

On Thursday 11 January 2024, Claude Wiseler, the new President of the Chamber of Deputies (Luxembourg's parliament), paid a working visit to Brussels.

The Chamber of Deputies reported that Claude Wiseler met Roberta Metsola, the President of the European Parliament, in Brussels as part of his efforts to place European policy issues at the centre of the work of the Chamber of Deputies.

“It was very important for me to make this trip to Brussels […] one of my first visits as President of the Chamber of Deputies,” Claude Wiseler said. The Chamber of Deputies reported that he stressed on multiple occasions during his trip to the Belgian capital on Thursday that monitoring and positioning on European policy issues was at the centre of his concerns.

These questions were also among the points discussed with Roberta Metsola to whom he reaffirmed the priority he gave to ensuring that European issues such as directives and regulations were better understood and dealt with politically in the Luxembourg parliament. At the end of the interview, which was held face to face in the offices of the Presidency of the European Parliament, Claude Wiseler affirmed that Roberta Metsola had expressed to him her openness in principle to help meet the needs of Luxembourg in terms of collaboration with its institution at European level. Claude Wiseler, however, qualified his remarks by affirming that it was not a question of proposing a “final formula” in terms of rapprochement, but rather of showing a desire to progress on these questions and to find new forms of collaboration between the Luxembourg and European parliaments. European Parliament President, Roberta Metsola, will be received at the Luxembourg parliament on Wednesday 24 January 2024.

During his trip, the President of the Chamber of Deputies also met the first Vice-President of the European Parliament, the Austrian Othmar Karas, also during a face-to-face meeting.

Among the other subjects discussed between the President of the Chamber of Deputies and his European interlocutors were the question of the revision of European treaties, transnational electoral lists and the Conference on the Future of Europe.

During the same trip, Claude Wiseler also met Eliane Tillieux, President of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives, the first female President of the Belgian House of Representatives, in office since October 2020. They discussed equal opportunities between women and men in parliaments and related initiatives undertaken in her parliament. Eliane Tillieux affirmed that it would be interesting to set up a working group between Belgian and Luxembourg parliamentarians on this subject.