Top five stories you may have missed
Parliament to decide on mandatory jabs, government says
Luxembourg backs a vaccine mandate but is to leave the specific details of any future law in the hands of deputies to decide, after a heated debate in parliament on Wednesday exposed deep divisions over the issue.
The government said it would back a limited mandate for the over-50s and healthcare staff that a panel of independent experts first proposed last week, but said it was leaving the next steps to parliament.
With seats empty, Luxair flies to protect landing slots
Luxembourg's struggling national airline is losing money on flights with few passengers to meet EU rules, burning up fuel just to avoid losing valuable landing rights at Europe's most crowded airports.
State-owned Luxair refused to estimate how many unprofitable flights it will dispatch in the first three months of the year to protect the lucrative rights after the Omicron wave of the pandemic helped kill passenger volumes.
Luxembourg lukewarm in pursuit of EU fraud, data hints
Luxembourg passed on just two cases of suspected EU fraud to the bloc's authorities over the past decade, suggesting there is little fraud against the EU budget in the country - or no enthusiasm to pursue it.
The Grand Duchy did not refer any irregularities with EU funding to the bloc's anti-fraud office OLAF in 2020, the latest available data from the European Commission shows. And over the past decade, Luxembourg has only flagged suspected fraud on two occasions - once in 2013 and again in 2017 - according to OLAF’s annual reports. Both related to agricultural funding.
Luxembourg tiptoes around Olympics boycott
Grand Duke Henri will attend the 2022 Beijing winter olympics in a personal capacity as Luxembourg tiptoes around a diplomatic boycott of the games, which are mired in controversy about China's human rights violations.
While no other members of the government will travel to the February event, Luxembourg is not enacting a diplomatic boycott of the games, unlike other countries such as the US, the UK, Japan, Canada and Australia.
France grants US extradition request for Luxembourg spy
A French court on Wednesday granted a request to extradite former Luxembourg spy Frank Schneider to the United States, where he is sought in connection with the multibillion dollar OneCoin cryptocurrency scam.
Schneider was not present in the court room in Nancy to hear a judge rule she would comply with the request from America, after authorities there had submitted additional information France had requested.
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