Is it still possible to reform? The question may seem blunt. It is, above all, necessary. 

Year after year, in Luxembourg as in Europe, we launch consultations, commission reports, establish diagnoses, and announce transformations. And yet, when the time comes to decide and implement them, ambitions are often scaled back. Timelines are extended, compromises sometimes end up taking precedence over the initial ambition. And reforms, the real ones, are postponed, diluted, sometimes stripped of part of their substance. 

We have just experienced this again in Luxembourg, in the first quarter of 2026, with the pension reform. For months, the sustainability of our system was debated. Much more ambitious scenarios had been considered. The reform ultimately adopted constitutes a step forward. But everyone knows that it does not settle the debate on the sustainability of our pension system. The same applies to the healthcare system and long-term care insurance. 

Europe faces the same difficulties. We have the Letta report. We have the Draghi report. And their diagnoses are severe. A year and a half after the publication of the Draghi report, only 26% of the 30 most critical measures have been implemented, and none has reached its full implementation, according to a study published by JEDI (Joint European Disruptive Initiative), the agency funding breakthrough research and innovation. 

The problem is no longer just diagnosis. It is execution. 

This is precisely the question we wanted to place at the heart of the debates during the second edition of the Chamber of Commerce’s economic forum, which brought together more than 450 participants on September 16: is it still possible to reform? It is a deeply political question. 

For the first edition, we asked another question: what is the cost of inaction? One year later, we wanted to continue the reasoning. If inaction has a cost, then we must act. If we want to address the structural problems we face, we must accept reform. 

This is where things become more difficult. Because while many of us want things to change, far fewer are willing to say what should change, at what pace, what personal efforts we are prepared to make, and what compromises we are willing to accept. 

This is precisely the debate we want to open. Because behind the question of reform lies another, even more fundamental one: what do we want to preserve? We want to preserve our prosperity, our social cohesion, our quality of life, our social model. We want to preserve Luxembourg’s ability to offer opportunities to those who live and work here. 

But there are contradictions we must face. 

We want to preserve our social model while demographic changes are profoundly altering its balance. We want to preserve our standard of living while our productivity is no longer increasing sufficiently. We want to preserve our attractiveness while housing, labour costs, and administrative complexity have become burdens. We want to continue financing more collective needs while our room for manoeuvre is not unlimited. And we want to continue creating wealth while the growth model that sustained Luxembourg for decades is reaching its limits. 

Can we preserve our model without accepting that it must change? No, obviously not. As Lampedusa wrote in The Leopard, already mentioned in a previous article of this blog: “Everything must change so that everything can stay the same.” This phrase may seem paradoxical. But for a Luxembourger, it should ultimately feel quite familiar. It echoes another phrase,our national motto: “Mir wëlle bleiwe wat mir sinn.” We want to remain what we are. 

And what if these two apparently contradictory phrases say, in reality, the same thing? We want to remain what we are. But to remain what we are, we must accept change, we must accept reform. 

This is perhaps one of the great lessons of Luxembourg’s economic history. We preserved our prosperity because we transformed our economy: from agriculture to steel, from steel to the financial centre, and then from the financial centre to an economy based on new technologies and innovation. 

And this is precisely why we must reform. This necessity is all the greater because the world around us is changing at an impressive pace. Europe has become aware of the urgency. Competitiveness has finally returned to the centre of the European agenda. This is excellent news. But reports will not reform Europe. Declarations will not close our investment gap. And strategies will only produce results if they are effectively implemented. 

While we debate, the world moves forward. And the world does not wait for us. 

Luxembourg cannot, of course, think of itself independently from these transformations. Our growth regime has changed. Over the period 2019–2025, the average annual growth of the Luxembourg economy was only 1%, compared with 2.4% between 2010 and 2019 and more than 4% before the financial crisis. We must therefore ask a simple question: can we continue to finance a model built in a Luxembourg that is accustomed to strong growth if that growth becomes consistently weaker? 

Other signals should alert us. In 2025, around three quarters of net job creation took place in non-market sectors. Out of approximately 6,000 net jobs created, only 1,600 were in the commercial sector. Again, this is not about opposing public and private sectors. It is about asking an essential question for the future of our model: where will the private engines of wealth and job creation be that will finance our collective ambitions tomorrow? 

Investment is another warning signal. Since 2021, it has declined by nearly 5.7% per year on average. 

Added to this are the challenges we already know. Housing remains a major issue for attractiveness and social cohesion: in 2023, tenants in the private market spent on average 39% of their income on rent and charges, compared with 32% in 2016. And our growth model still relies heavily on an external workforce: nearly 47% of employees in Luxembourg are cross-border workers. The saturation of our transport infrastructure is a warning sign of the growing difficulties we face in attracting more workers to Luxembourg. 

Our public finances, described as sound over recent decades, are beginning to feel pressure from, on the one hand, structurally rising expenditures, and on the other hand, weaker revenues. 

Taken individually, these indicators can be put into perspective. Taken together, they describe trends and outline trajectories that can no longer be ignored. They do not tell us that the Luxembourg model has failed. They tell us that its future success is no longer guaranteed. 

These issues are not new. And that is precisely the problem. When the same diagnoses come back year after year, the question is no longer whether we understand. It is why we are not acting—more quickly and more decisively. 

In two years, Luxembourg will hold new legislative elections. Two years may seem like a distant horizon. It is, however, extremely short when it comes to thinking about the future of an economic and social model. The Chamber of Commerce has therefore decided to use this period to engage in in-depth reflection on the economic future of our country. 

Not to enter the electoral campaign,that is not our role. Nor to prepare, as 2028 approaches, a simple catalogue of demands. Our ambition must be greater: we want to help build a vision for the Luxembourg of tomorrow. 

September 16, 2026 thus marked the launch of a major reflection process that will lead us to 2028. We will document, compare, confront ideas, and foster dialogue among stakeholders. We will look at what works elsewhere, test proposals, and sometimes challenge certain assumptions. 

With one guiding principle: to transform and reform before circumstances force painful choices upon us. To reform in order to preserve, so that each generation can pass on to the next at least as many opportunities as it has itself received.