On Wednesday 8 October 2026, local non-profit organisation Mouvement Ecologique issued a statement following the presentation of the 2027 draft state budget by Luxembourg’s Minister of Finance Gilles Roth.
Mouvement Ecologique said that from the perspective of sustainable development the draft budget shows “blatant disregard for key challenges for the future, with no prospects offered for the urgent problems of our time!”
The non-profit organisation noted that the budget speech only contained “a few comments” on environmental issues, mainly support programmes that are already effectively in place, e.g. Klimabonus Wunnen and Klimabonus Mobilitéit, and an additional announcement on the “Leasing Social” scheme for electric cars. However, it highlighted that the speech contained no “strategic or genuinely new statements relevant to the future in the area of sustainable development.”
Mouvement Ecologique said: “The speech by the Finance Minister does not make clear which areas the focus of further development should be placed on. The problems associated with growth (overburdened infrastructure, traffic jams, urban sprawl, supply problems, resource consumption, etc.) are not addressed, nor is the question of how growth can be reconciled with sustainable development. It is the conventional growth discourse, which is increasingly regarded as outdated even by mainstream economists.”
The environmental association detailed that across the EU the economic damage caused by this summer’s heatwave and drought is estimated at 1% of gross national product and stressed: “There is not a word on how Luxembourg intends to deal with this.”
Mouvement Ecologique said that according to the European Commission, economic damage caused by weather- and climate-related extremes in Luxembourg between 1980 and 2024 amounted to €1.5 trillion, and the need for action arising from this is not being addressed, prompting it to question Luxembourg’s plans for 2027.
“For years, the budget rapporteurs have proposed introducing the “Green Budgeting” instrument. This would involve a critical review of government expenditure that fuels the climate and biodiversity crises with taxpayers’ money instead of combating them (and should therefore be reduced accordingly). In a country such as Switzerland, the amount of misguided investment is estimated to run into billions. This is why the 2026 rapporteur also included this instrument in his sixteen recommendations for the next state budget. At least from the Finance Minister’s speech, no influence of these considerations on the 2027 draft state budget can be discerned.”
Mouvement Ecologique also raised issues about the non-inclusion of aspects such as the implementation of the Climate and Social Plan, dealing with the CO₂ tax and prevention policies related to water contamination and the lack of transparency surrounding Luxembourg’s PIBien-être (“well-being GDP”) - a framework designed to measure people’s well-being and quality of life alongside traditional GDP, rather than treating economic output as the sole measure of progress.
“A budget speech cannot cover every subject area. But it is nevertheless more than sobering how little the genuinely relevant questions for the future are addressed and how entrenched the debate on budget planning remains in old patterns. One increasingly wonders where this government intends to take the people,” stressed Mouvement Ecologique.
