“The prime minister lacked substance,” said Sven Clement of the Pirate party after the speech. “There was no new announcement,” he said.

The PM during his speech had said specialised investment funds (SIFs) holding real estate assets would be taxed in future and a stock options regime for high earners would be abolished. Both measures had been previously proposed by the opposition but been voted down by the majority parties.

For the CSV, the biggest opposition group in parliament, there were no new impulses on housing and climate, said faction leader Martine Hansen. She said the speech lacked “strategy, vision, especially in the field of public finances.”

Bettel had announced that the state would continue spending but left the finer points of the 2021 budget to finance minister Pierre Gramegna who presented next year’s budget on Wednesday 14 October.

And while the ADR and déi Lénk parties usually agree on very little, they both said the premier had simply repeated the government’s 2018 coalition programme without reacting to the economic and social crisis that the coronavirus pandemic entails.

The coalition parties defended quite the opposite view. “I saw a prime minister committed and determined to get our country out of this crisis,” said Gilles Baum (DP). Bettel said during his speech that partial unemployment for companies losing business because of the pandemic would continue into next year.

Josée Lorsché (Greens) welcomed the announcement that the scheme would continue, saying the premier had addressed a series of important issues. In his two-hour speech, Bettel covered the pandemic, taxation, economic stimulus but also climate change, Brexit, the cultural sector and cultural heritage, press aid, and a raft of other topics. 

“The prime minister gave a very good speech,” said Georges Engel (LSAP), saying that the SIFs and stock options reform had long been agenda items of the social democrat party.  

MPs on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning will officially debate the speech in parliament.

This article was originally published in French on Paperjam.lu and has been translated and edited by Delano.