Dieschbourg (déi Gréng) left the family business in 2013 and this week said she cut all ties with the mill when she was appointed to the Luxembourg government. Opposition members had accused her of turning a blind eye to the fact that the Moulin Dieschbourg was not compliant with waste laws.

These obligate companies to either take back packaging waste or outsource this task, an option chosen by all businesses in Luxembourg with Valorlux holding a monopoly in the market.

Valorlux in January submitted a list of non-compliant companies to the environment administration, featuring the Moulin Dieschbourg. But a previous edition of the list, issued in 2020, did not feature the mill.

“I had no knowledge of this second list,” Dieschbourg said on 17 June, adding that the second list had been attached to a 200-page document on a completely different topic.

“Why was a company's non-compliance with its waste obligations not reported through the normal channels, but only as an appendix to a list that was said not to have changed,” she said.

Dieschbourg’s statement on Thursday came a day after she had been summoned by lawmakers to explain herself.

The environment minister said she would be meeting with Valorlux director Lucien Bertemes to discuss the issue. Bertemes insists that he informed Dieschbourg about the non-compliance of the Moulin Dieschbourg, something the minister denies.

None of the companies reported for non-compliance by Valorlux have been sanctioned with a fine. The environment administration’s strategy initially relies on helping companies become compliant, Dieschbourg said.

This story was first published on Paperjam. It has been translated and edited for Delano.