The Government and Chamber : Majority want to keep the content of the agreement protocol with Google, Secret.

In a non-public meeting on Thursday this week, Prime Minister Bettel (DP), Finance Minister Gramegna (DP), and Economics Minister Fayot (LSAP) gave members of the Parliamentary Economic Commission an insight into an agreement protocol the government concluded with Google. As it is well known, the US internet company plans to build its sixth data center in Europe in Bissen on a 34.7-hectare site on Busbierg.

The project had hit the headlines because, with its implementation in the Zone Special Datacenter, firstly, there would be a significant loss of arable land (30 hectares), secondly, there was no clarity about water consumption (which, however, could be significant), thirdly the venture would consume seven percent of the total electricity consumption in Luxembourg in the construction phase and as much as twelve percent in the final expansion phase, and fourthly it is not clear what the economic and social added value would be for Luxembourg unless the profit expectations of the group were met equate with it.

After the meeting, during which the majority decided to keep the content secret, CSV MP Mosar had said that it was completely incomprehensible why the government had practically resisted for a whole year, the MP insight into the "Memorandum of understanding «To give, since its content is completely unspectacular and does not allow any references to Google's business policy.

At the same time as the muzzle, which she gave to the members of the Economic Commission, the government informed the lawyer of the Mouvement Ecologique (Meco) via a letter from the Ministry of Economy that it did not want to send a copy of the agreement protocol to the environmental organization, so that its content remains under wraps will stay.

After the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the municipality of Bissen refused to give him any insight into the protocol of the agreement, Meco criticized the lack of transparency and filed a complaint with the Commission d’accès aux documents.

The complainant had upheld this complaint and stated that there was no reason to withhold the content of the document from the environmental organization, which the government coalition, which apparently hates transparency like the devil has holy water, does not care - despite the law regarding the "Administration transparent" the year 2018, which anyway falls far short of really democratic standards and is now being eroded due to the government decision and is being carried out “ad absurdum”.

Meco speaks of "evidence of poverty" and "anti-democratic decision"

The Mouvement Ecologique describes the fact that the government does not even bother to even begin to respond to the arguments of the advisory commission it has set up as a "certificate of poverty", "snobbishness" and an "anti-democratic decision" and raises the question of whether Government fears "that in addition to the Google dossier, it will have to deal with such memoranda between the private sector and the state more transparently in the future?"

The example shows that "we are far from an open and democratic, transparent state," concludes the environmental organization, which affirms that it will immediately file an appeal against the government's decision with the administrative court.

In fact, this anti-democratic decision by the government coalition once again confirms that - as the KPL has repeatedly denounced in the past - the government is always secretive when the public sector makes agreements with corporations and acts in their interest, but not in the general interest.

An example of this is the tax avoidance structures, the so-called "rulings", with which the tax office, on behalf of the government, helped corporations like Ikea, Pepsi, E.on, and Deutsche Bank to save billions of taxes past the state tax bag.

Which clearly shows the role of the state and the government as corporate assistants.