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Pirate party leader Sven Clement is pictured speaking in parliament during the Brexit hearing on 20 November, 2018Photo: Flickr/Chambre des Députés 

On Friday last week, parliament announced the two parties would form a technical group for the next legislature, a decision which provoked some surprise because of the diverging nature of the two parties’ policies. Luxembourg elected two MPs from the Pirate Party in the October 2018 legislative elections on a platform of transparency and political accountability for decisions made on the public’s behalf. The ADR’s campaign revolved around protecting the Luxembourg language and culture and stronger controls on immigration.

Speaking to Delano on Wednesday morning, Pirate Party leader Sven Clement stressed the collaboration in no way meant the parties would coordinate on a political level or even sit next to one another. Indeed each party keeps its own staff and offices.

“We formed a technical group which lets every party continue to do their work independently of the other, we may disagree on topics and speak and vote however it pleases the parties,” Clement stated on 21 November.

He said that the decision would enable the Pirate Party to “work more efficiently thanks to more means and uses all the means potentially available to us in the parliaments rules of procedure [… ] it also allows us to influence the speaking time allotment as well as guarantees us a seat in the ‘bureau’ as well as in the secret service commission.” Clement was referring to the “bureau” that manages parliamentary business.

What is a technical group?

A technical group is composed of at least five deputies who nominate a coordinator, who may speak during the conference of presidents, the body which brings together presidents from different political parties.

It enables the political parties within the technical group to nominate a member within the commission for the oversight of the country’s intelligence service. It also increases the amount of speaking time available to representatives of all parties within the group in public meetings. ADR MP Fernand Kartheiser will be the first coordinator of the ADR-Pirate technical group before the Chamber of Deputies’ interim speaker, Gast Gibéryen of the ADR, takes the role.

According to parliament, the first 20 months of the next legislature the coordinators will be selected from the four ADR MPs, and the last 20 months the Pirate MPs Marc Goergen and Sven Clement.