Political Leave for Local Elected Officials Increases According to Municipality Population Size

On Thursday 1 August 2024, Luxembourg's Ministry of Home Affairs announced changes to the political leave allowance for mayors, aldermen and municipal councillors.

The ministry recalled that the government coalition agreement provides for "a reassessment and adaptation of political leave, as well as the financial conditions attached to it, taking into account current requirements in terms of complexity and time required" and also to establish "a legal framework for the position of full-time mayor, with a political leave of 40 hours, in municipalities with 6,000 citizens or more".

The ministry described the challenges associated with the functions of mayor, alderman and municipal councillor as "increasingly complex", adding that they require increasingly significant time and personal commitment. "It was therefore important to support participation in the democratic life of our society through concrete measures allowing for more committed and fairer local management", said Luxembourg's Minister for Home Affairs, Léon Gloden.

Consequently, local elected officials willl be entitled to an increased number of hours of political leave. This involves in particular granting 40 hours of political leave to mayors of municipalities with at least 6,000 inhabitants to ensure greater availability and allow them to devote themselves to their tasks as local elected officials, which are "constantly becoming more diverse and complex", according to the ministry.

Furthermore, the future reference for determining the number of hours of political leave will be the population of the municipality instead of the number of members of the municipal council. This is expected to allow local elected officials to benefit from the increase in political leave in real time, without having to wait for an increase in the number of municipal council members, which is only carried out in the context of municipal elections.

Moreover, the municipal council will distribute an additional fifteen-hour political leave among its members, which represents an increase of six hours compared to the previous system.

Another improvement, as reported by the ministry, is that the hourly compensation paid to self-employed people and individuals without a profession who are not registered with social security, under the age of 65, who are mayors, aldermen or municipal councillors, will be doubled and is set at a flat rate of four times the minimum social wage for skilled workers. The purpose of this amendment is to align the political leave system for local elected representatives in these categories with that of the Chamber of Deputies (Luxembourg's parliament).

The ministry added that these new measures take into account the diversification of the functions of local elected representatives and aim to facilitate their "essential commitment to the democratic fabric".

The Grand Ducal regulation providing for the aforementioned changes entered into force on 1 August (i.e. the first day of the month following its publication in the Official Journal of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg).