Ministers Fayot, Backes Present Key Elements of National Reform Programme, Stability and Growth Programme

On Tuesday 26 April 2022, Luxembourg's Minister of the Economy, Franz Fayot, and the Minister of Finance, Yuriko Backes, presented the key elements of the National Reform Programme (NRP) and the Program for Stability and Growth 2022-2026 (PSC) at a third meeting with the social partners, in the context of the 2022 European Semester, to the social partners at the Chateau de Senningen.

The European Semester is a cycle of coordination of economic, budgetary, social and labour policies within the European Union. It focuses on the first six months of each year. In Luxembourg, representatives of employee and employer organisations have been meeting government representatives since 2015 to discuss the key elements of this coordination cycle.

Every year, Luxembourg is called upon to present and send its annual National Reform Programme (NRP) to the European Commission. The 2022 NRP is part of the European Semester and goes hand in hand with the Stability and Growth Programme 2022-2026 (SGP).

The NRP describes the strategy that the government has pursued in order to lay the groundwork for green, digital and inclusive transition. Over the past few years, the NRP has evolved and this year encompasses not only certain Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and also some elements of the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights. For the first time, the NRP also includes a reporting section on the reform and investment projects included in the Luxembourg Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR). In addition, the NRP describes the measures that Luxembourg has taken to ensure the implementation of the country-specific recommendations addressed to it within the framework of the European Semester for the years 2019, 2020 and 2021.

The SGP is the document that each EU Member State is called upon to provide to the European Commission by establishing an overview of the financial situation by means of an update of the multiannual economic and budgetary forecasts. The SGP 2022 describes the medium-term budgetary policy and provides the related figures over a period of 4 years, namely from 2022 to 2026. The SGP thus forms a harmonised framework through which the European Commission assesses the financial perspectives of each EU Member State and on the basis of which it formulates its recommendations on budgetary matters in the light of the rules of the Stability and Growth Pact.

On 27 April, the PNR and the PSC is being presented to the Chamber of Deputies. These presentations will be followed on 28 April 2022 by parliamentary debates. Then, the government will send these two reports to the European Commission which, on this basis, will draw up proposals for recommendations, which will be published as part of the spring package, as for each Member State. The proposed recommendations will then be discussed and adopted at the level of the different formations of the Council of the EU.