Uni budget, indexation, Brexit advice

“The resignation of the chancellor is indicative of the uni’s budgetary problems”, one instructor-researcher at the University of Luxembourg murmured to Paperjam. The institution’s 2017 budget, with a €26.8m deficit, was only presented at the end of March 2017, and work on 2018’s budget has apparently not yet begun. Rainer Klump’s resignation took effect on Tuesday.
The next “indexation” is expected to take place during the second or third quarter of next year, according to Statec, the national statistics bureau. That means salaries and pension payments will automatically rise by 2.5%. Statec also forecast that consumer prices will increase 1.8% this year and inflation will be 1.7% in 2018.
Luxembourg’s government has hired a pair of firms to advise it on negotiations over the UK’s exit from the EU. The firms will help the finance ministry study the potential impact of Brexit in the financial services and tax spaces. The information was revealed in a response from the DP finance minister Pierre Gramegna to a parliamentary question by CSV MP Laurent Mosar. According to the Luxembourger Wort, the consulting firm PwC and law office of Arendt & Medernach won the government contracts.
KBL epb (European private bank) posted net banking income of €465.9m and operating income of €37.1m last year. Net profits dropped from €81.3m in 2015 to €6m to 2016. No dividend payment will be issued. 99.9% of KBL shares are owned by Precision Capital, the Luxembourg-based investment vehicle for Qatar’s royal family, which also has a controlling stake in Banque internationale à Luxembourg.
The government has launched the second part of a regional mobility study. Altogether the infrastructure ministry hopes to garner responses from 40,000 households in Luxembourg and the households of 45,000 cross-border commuters on how exactly how they get around. François Bausch, the Green infrastructure minister, said the last such study was conducted been 1995 and 1997. Questionnaires are being fielded--in English, French, German, Luxembourgish and Portuguese--by phone, email and postal mail. Research is expected to finish at the end of May and results published in the autumn.