Claude Wiseler, leader of the CSV, which currently has the most seats in parliament, said in a radio interview on Monday 12 June that if his party won the 2018 parliamentary elections, he would not start talks with the ADR.Picture caption: Claude Wiseler in September 2016 Maison Moderne

Claude Wiseler, leader of the CSV, which currently has the most seats in parliament, said in a radio interview on Monday 12 June that if his party won the 2018 parliamentary elections, he would not start talks with the ADR.Picture caption: Claude Wiseler in September 2016 Maison Moderne

On Monday 12 June, the leading candidate for the centre right CSV in the parliamentary elections in 2018 told RTL radio in an interview that “as the ADR stands now, as it is today, it is out of the question that we would want it as coalition partner”.

He rejected the suggestion that Luxembourg was similarly divided as other countries. He said that the image of having two camps (the “left” Gambia camp--as the coalition of DP, LSAP and Greens is often called), and the “right” CSV-ADR), as proposed by some government ministers, was detrimental to politics. He argued that that was not tradition in Luxembourg; that this was not the way politics and coalitions were done in the grand duchy.

Gast Gibéryen, an MP from the ADR, had said a few months ago in an interview that his party would be prepared to form a government with the CSV.

But Wiseler stated that they differed in some fundamental policies:

“we cannot make policies with a Eurosceptic party, we have different views on social and societal policies such as equal marriage, on immigration and integration, such as the citizenship law for example. We have a different view on constitutional reform which the ADR does not want. We have a different development aid policy, which the ADR wants to reduce. That is not possible with the CSV--those are no-gos. These are not points on which we can compromise, because they touch on who we are as a party. Therefore, today the answer is clearly no.”

He continued to add: “if the ADR changes on these policies, it won’t be the ADR anymore.”

Reaction from ADR

The ADR MP Fernand Kartheiser wrote on his Facebook page, in his personal name, that if the ADR came out stronger from the 2018 elections and the CSV would not want to talk to his party, then the will of the voters would not be respected. The CSV was showing that it did not stand for change and was not much different to the current coalition.

Kartheiser stated that Wiseler did not favour those left/right camps because in fact, the CSV was a centre-left party. The ADR would then not be there for the CSV to help get it a majority.