Discover these news and more politics stories that didn’t hit the headlines in our weekly roundup.

Top stories on Delano

·      Foreigners before the October elections must hurry. Delano look a closer look at some of the delays and deadlines that could stand in the way of first-time voters.

·      Integration minister Corinne Cahen (DP) this week presented a bill to . A public consultation began more than two years ago and, among the key changes, a national foreigners council is being abolished.

·      King Charles III was revealed as in the UK through companies in Luxembourg. The revelations come amid new rules from London to declare beneficial owners of entities buying land or property. 

From parliament

·      Members of parliament on Thursday debated the investment strategy of Luxembourg’s pension fund. Activists in the run-up to the debate had demanded a to align investments with the Paris Agreement. The DP-déi Gréng-LSAP majority on 9 February , demanding that the Fonds de compensation revise its investment strategy, which it considers to be out of synch with global climate targets. The motion gained support from some of the opposition’s deputies too, though the leader of the opposition, the CSV, mainly approved of the fund’s plans.  

·      The Luxembourg Court of Auditors, a watchdog under the auspices of parliament, this week gave political parties the all-clear for how they managed their finances in 2021 as part of a yearly review of donations, revenue and spending.

·      Lawmakers this week also analysed plans by the government to send between €33m to €66m to Denmark in a bid to source more renewable energies. An agreement signed between both countries to invest in offshore energy islands was signed last year but must now be put into action.

Tweet of the week

Thomas Lambert is the Belgian ambassador to Luxembourg.

Diplomatic relations

·      Luxembourg deployed an to Turkey to assist in relief efforts following several devastating earthquakes that hit the country and also neighbouring Syria this week.

·      Finnish prime minister Sanna Marin is due for a visit in Luxembourg on Friday. She will meet with PM Xavier Bettel (DP) but also the University of Luxembourg’s rector Jens Kreisel and Guido Lessing, who leads the institution’s centre for digital and contemporary history (C2DH).  

·      Finance minister Yuriko Backes (DP) from 5 to 10 February is on a whistlestop tour in Asia, stopping first in South Korea and then Singapore to meet with local finance ministers and strengthen bilateral relations. In Singapore, she’s also taking part in an event organised by Luxembourg for Finance.

·      Agriculture minister Claude Haagen (LSAP) on 4 February, following the last edition of Politics weekly on 3 February, met with the Chinese ambassador to Luxembourg Hua Ning. The “very cordial” meeting served to “maintain good Sino-Luxembourg diplomatic relations”, a press release said.

Elections

·      Prime minister Xavier Bettel (DP) said his party would not announce whether he is running for PM again until the summer. This came after the CSV had . Bettel said he is available for a third term but said it’s up to the DP to decide who they want to run the race. Bettel had previously campaigned for limiting government mandates to ten years.

·      Foreign workers’ rights group Asti this week said non-nationals must be better integrated into local politics. It said foreigners’ committees in municipalities should be abolished in favour of non-nationals joining existing committees focused on different policy issues. Asti said the government should do more to welcome and support blue-collar immigrants and not just wealthy expats.