The debate on cross-border workers is once again in danger of descending into a knee-jerk and short-sighted game of give-and-take. Whether it is the French ambassador raising the prospect of Luxembourg co-funding French nurseries, or Belgium’s plans for a car vignette that would primarily affect commuters: in neighbouring countries, complaints about supposedly ‘lost’ tax revenue dominate the debate. And in Luxembourg, the usual struggle to find a political response – one designed primarily to satisfy its neighbours – is beginning.

Yet it is high time to counter these demands with clear statements and a sober assessment of the actual economic interdependence.

After all, the cross-border labour market is not a one-way street. Without the Luxembourg labour market, regions such as Lorraine or the Belgian province of Luxembourg would face considerable economic and labour market challenges. At the same time, a key economic aspect is barely taken into account in the debate: the long-term returns from the Luxembourg pension system.

Even today, more than half of Luxembourg’s pensions are paid abroad. In 2024, more than 42,000 pensions went to France alone and more than 22,000 to Belgium.

As the generation that has helped drive the strong expansion of cross-border work over decades reaches retirement age, these pension entitlements will increasingly flow back into neighbouring regions. A growing proportion of the pensions accrued in Luxembourg will count as income there, boosting purchasing power, consumption and, indirectly, public revenue as well.

This is not a gift from Luxembourg, but the equivalent value of social security entitlements that have been earned. It is precisely for this reason that this aspect must be taken into account in any assessment of cross-border employment. Anyone who considers only the costs to Luxembourg is missing the bigger picture.

No one disputes that cross-border workers make an important contribution to Luxembourg’s economic strength and are indispensable in many sectors. Yet the model is increasingly coming up against structural limits – in transport, housing, land use and the question of where jobs will be created in future.

Instead of developing a sustainable model for the Greater Region, politicians continue to respond with piecemeal measures: a few hundred million for French rail infrastructure here, additional compensation payments there. This may defuse tensions in the short term, but it is not a long-term strategy.

It is cynical that DP MPs, of all people, are now criticising this in an open letter to the Belgian government. After all, the party bore governmental responsibility for relations with the Greater Region for many years. Anyone calling for more strategic thinking today must also face the question of why such concepts were not pursued more consistently in the past.

Anyone wishing to safeguard the interdependence of housing, mobility, cross-border work and the stability of social security systems must break out of this reactive crisis mode.

We therefore call for:

• An end to a policy of ever-new demands for financial compensation. The financial interdependencies within the Greater Region must be viewed holistically – including the growing pension payments to people who have accrued their entitlements in Luxembourg and live abroad.
• Joint cross-border activity and economic zones must finally become a reality. Jobs must be brought closer to where cross-border workers live. This reduces commuting, eases the burden on Luxembourg and, at the same time, strengthens the economic development of neighbouring regions.
• Politicians in Luxembourg must finally start thinking and acting with a longer-term perspective. This is precisely where the demand, repeatedly put forward by the Fokus party, for a ‘Commission for the Future’ modelled on the Finnish example comes in. We need an institutionalised body that examines demographic trends, infrastructure, the labour market and social systems over a 20-year horizon and beyond – independent of day-to-day political squabbles and election-related skirmishes.

The Greater Region does not need a political approach where every new burden placed on Luxembourg is met with a new demand for compensation. It needs a joint strategy that takes into account the interests of all stakeholders.

It is high time that politicians on both sides of the border stopped managing the challenges of the 21st century with 19th-century ways of thinking.

Luxembourg, 31 August 2026

Press contact: Marc Ruppert (marc.ruppert@fokus.lu)