Luxembourg’s Court of Auditors last week published a report citing irregularities in the sale of the land located between Bettembourg and Dudelange. For example, negotiations between the economy ministry and Fage weren’t documented, and there is no record of how both parties agreed on a price.

Lawmakers on Monday agreed that Franz Fayot (LSAP)--who succeeded Schneider in office--and finance minister Pierre Gramegna (DP) should appear for questions in front of a budget control committee.

Depending on the outcome of this meeting, MPs will consider inviting Schneider for further questions.

This would mark the second time that Schneider is summoned by the budget control committee in the last year. He previously faced questions over the costs of a military Earth observation satellite, Luxeosys, that he spearheaded.

Following the 2018 elections, François Bausch (Déi Gréng) took over as defence minister and found the €170m budget vastly insufficient. Parliament in November last year gave the go-ahead to add another €139m to the project to account for operational costs that did not appear in Schneider’s plans. However, lawmakers also tasked the Court of Auditors with analysing the accounts.

The former minister defended his strategy, saying it followed previous military projects where hardware and operational costs were processed differently. But there were further inconsistencies.

For example, Schneider had claimed that LuxGovSat--the firm managing the public private partnership GovSat-1 satellite--had all but agreed to run operations for Luxeosys. LuxGovSat, however, denied that it had made any commitments and ended up not bidding for the contract.

In the case of Fage, the Court of Auditors said there had been a consistent lack of dialogue between the economy and finance ministries on projects where the state sold or leased land for industrial use.

Fage in September 2020 pulled out of the project after four years of procedures to obtain a business licence remained without result and amid mounting opposition against the yoghurt factory on environmental grounds.

The state said it would buy back the land at the price it was sold, around €30m.