"Whoever sticks their neck out first loses it"

Franz Fayot knows politics from various perspectives: as a minister, as a party leader and as a Member of Parliament. So there was plenty to discuss.

Lëtzebuerger Journal: You took over the Ministry of the Economy in February 2020 – right at the start of the coronavirus crisis, of all times – after Etienne Schneider had had enough and wanted his life back. How do you look back on that difficult time?

Franz Fayot: The timing really was incredible. I was appointed minister in early February 2020 and just had time to go on an economic mission to Italy with Pierre Gramegna (the then DP Minister for Finance, ed.). We spent the first two days in Rome, where we were still able to carry out a reasonably normal programme, but that was precisely the time when Italy became the first country to be hit hard by Covid. Shortly afterwards, Covid reached us too. As a newly appointed minister, I was standing on the twelfth floor of my ministry on the Boulevard Royal at the time, looking down and seeing not a single car. Everything had ground to a halt, and I thought: Merde, the economy is collapsing right below you. However, the government then took a great many measures relatively quickly to support businesses: short-time working, various forms of aid and other measures, which were also paid out swiftly.

How do you look back on your time in government overall?

As a minister, you can bring about change. You can shape policy and have more clout than a Member of Parliament. My priority in the Ministry of the Economy was always to make the economy more sustainable. But that also meant conveying the message to industry that we need to decarbonise, and that there's a first-mover advantage if you do it early. That's why I also initiated things like the Luxembourg Strategy. The aim was to position ourselves strategically and consider which sectors are of interest to Luxembourg.

You were not only Minister for the Economy, but also Minister for Cooperation.

Cooperation was also an interesting area of responsibility. Covid has hit developing countries particularly hard. The aim was to consider how to make these countries more resilient, both in terms of women's rights and resilience to climate change. Both portfolios were extremely exciting for me.