Top five stories you may have missed
Keep City close, Gramegna pleads as EU mulls reforms
Europe's financial markets should remain open to outside actors, outgoing Finance Minister Pierre Gramegna said on Monday during a visit of a top EU official gauging the mood on reforms of the bloc's banking sector.
Gramegna, a pro-business liberal, urged the EU to stay open to work with other "countries and players" now that transactions within the 27-nation bloc's single market no longer counted as cross-border transactions
Is cleaning up space a profitable chore, firms wonder
Luxembourg’s budding space industry has yet to figure out how make money from removing outdated satellites and other gear left behind in orbit around earth, a problem some say could become soon become as big as climate change.
A Russian missile test in November, in which the country blew up one of its own satellites, made it clear that cleaning up space is not a luxury. The crash left behind a cloud of shrapnel, provoking international outrage because it threatened to punch holes in the International Space Station – and other countries’ satellites or rockets.
Annul Fiat's €30m Luxembourg tax bill, says EU court
The EU's top court should annul an earlier ruling for carmaker Fiat to pay Luxembourg €30 million in back taxes, a lower chamber at the court said on Thursday, setting the European Commission up for another loss in a protracted battle about sweetheart tax deals with the Grand Duchy.
The opinion by an advocate general is not binding, but is likely to steer a decision by the European Court of Justice which will now examine the 2015 case which is part of Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager's crackdown on what she says constitutes illegal state aid
Luxembourg adopts watered-down lobby register
Luxembourg has adopted a register which will show which lobbyists have been meeting parliamentarians - after years of discussion and pressure from the European Commission to take action - although the bill contains several exemptions and no apparent system of checks.
The legislation, voted into law last week, requires anyone wishing to meet a deputy to register their intention to do so, regardless of the location of the meeting. Responsibility for registration falls to the lobbyist, not the deputy.
EIB to pay minor compensation in harassment case
The European Investment Bank will have to pay just a fraction of damages claimed by a ex-employee in a psychological harassment case, the latest example of a conflict over mental health issues at the EU bank.
A woman, who started working at the bank in 2011, took the EIB before the European Court of Justice last year after an investigation panel at the bank concluded her claims of psychological harassment against two managers were "manifestly unfounded", court documents stated on Wednesday.
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