Your Excellency President Gasparovic,
Your Royal Highnesses,
Mr. State Secretary,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Distinguished Guests,
Thank you for joining us this morning.
Before getting down to business, please let me briefly don my other hat: that of Minister of Sports and former professional football player. I would like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to all of Slovakia after your historic 2:0 victory over the German national team. It was a good game and proof that, in sports as well as in real life, small countries should not be underestimated. The Luxembourg national team is still quite some distance away of scoring similar successes but your example is most encouraging.
Today, we are gathered in order to foster closer links between the business communities of Luxembourg and Slovakia. At present, trade between our countries has somewhat improved since Slovak indepenence but it is certainly not up to its potential. Last year, goods for a total value of 22.6 million Euros were exchanged, which is equivalent to an increase of 215 % since 1995. This figure looks encouraging, but in reality it is below the average trade increase trend that Luxembourg observed with the new EU member states. Why is this so? I am convinced that the reason is not a lack of opportunity. Maybe we do not know eachother well enough, despite the common history just mentioned by His Royal Highness the Grand Duke.
Today’s event is an opportunity to start changing this situation. "Luxembourg meets Slovakia": indeed, today business communities meet, communities that are the lifeblood of their nations, that represent the most dynamic elements of society. Risking committing a diplomatic gaffe, I daresay that today’s event is the most important of this visit. State Visits are by their very nature formalistic and centred on official protocol – this being the reason why I cannot devote as much time to the Luxembourg business delegation as I would want to - but this business forum serves as an opportunity to create a lasting impact on the relations between our two countries. In this context, I would like to thank His Excellency President Gasparovic and His Royal Highness the Grand Duke for recognizing the importance of this business seminar through their presence. I would also like to thank His Royal Highness Crown Prince Guillaume for following in His father’s footsteps by taking an active and present interest in the promotion of Luxembourg as a partner for trade and investment.
My own role in these State Visits can only be limited. As government ministers, we meet every other week in Brussels. Consequently, chances for dramatically new policy initiatives spawning from our meetings today are limited. But you, the business community, are able to to benefit from this visit by creating new partnerships, exploring new opportunities for your company and thus strengthening the bonds of friendship that link our nations.
Having arrived in your beautiful city yesterday, I see many similarities to my own country. His Royal Highness the Grand Duke did already point out traits of your national caracter that seem oddly familiar to the Luxembourgers. Even if history has led us down different paths during the 40 years following the Second World War, our economic history shows similarities. The modern Luxembourg was built on a legacy of steel: what Kosice is to the Slovak Republic, is Esch/Alzette and the surrounding region to Luxembourg. Today, you face the difficult task of restructuring your economy. Luxembourg has already completed this process and does understand that this is not easy and demands sacrifices. When Arbed, the precursor of what is today Arcelor, was in tremendous difficulties after the steel crisis of the late 1970ies, the government and the population as a whole worked very hard in order to save what could be saved. Of the 30.000 people that once worked in the Luxembourg steel industry, only some 6000 are left. Nevertheless, not a single worker was forced into unemployment. National solidarity, a tradition that is close to the Luxembourgers hearts, was the key to a painful and costly but in the end successful restructuring process.
Sectoral restructuring while avoiding social tragedies demands an active diversification effort. Of course, Luxembourg was lucky that the steel crisis coincided with a rapid development of the financial centre, giving the government fiscal revenue to pay for the early retirement schemes in the steel sector. Active investment promotion brought companies from Japan, the United States and and other countries to Luxembourg. Multilingualism, skilled labour, central location and a competitive regulatory environment have been and still are today the key to our success.
Similarly, the Slovak Republic has over the past ten years been leading a vigourous campaign to attract foreign investors. Im am satisfied to note that the tools of this campaign are evolving: Slovakia has in the recent past put more and more emphasis on its true attractions, namely an expertly trained workforce, competitive labour cost, excellent facilities for exporting into the European Single Market and business friendly policy environment. The days of lavish tax gifts to foreign investors seem to be over. I welcome this policy change since the mutual outbidding with incentive packages that was known to take place is not only counterproductive within the European Union, but it is a future burden for the populations concerned: ultimately it is them that will have to pay the price for lost fiscal revenue. State subsidies can be necessary in extraordinary situations, but in the end we all know that the money does not simply materialise in the State’s budget but has to be earned upfront by the business community through the labour of ordinary people.
Our economies are complementary in a host of ways. Slovakia has seen the establishment of numerous automobile manufacturers, setting the country on the way of becoming in the near future the world’s top per capita car producer. Luxembourg has a very active automobile components industry. From windshields and backlites to sensors and plastic components, most cars produced in the Slovak Republic will have parts stating "Made in Luxembourg" inside them. Mr. Pierre Gramenga, the Director General of the Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce will soon present our industrial landscape more in detail.
Slovak bonds are regularly quoted on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange and receive, I was told, excellent ratings. The Luxembourg fund industry invests hundreds of millions of Euros in your country. Closer cooperation in this field presents an array of opportunities, as Mr. Michel Maquil, the President of the Federation of Financial Sector Professionals and Mr. Robert Hoffmann, the Director General of the Luxembourg Investment Funds’ Association will explain.
Your Excellency Mr. President,
Your Royal Highnesses,
Mr State Secretary,
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Distinguished guests,
Luxembourg meets Slovakia in the beautiful city of Bratislava. I sincerely wish that this meeting results in commercial links that foster permanent contacts between our people for the benefit of both of our countries. But apart from business, let me also invite you to meet again in Luxembourg. I would like to invite a Slovak business delegation to our country, in order to follow-up on today’s discussions but also to discover our hospitality. I trust that our Chambers of Commerce will be more than willing to organise a trade mission of Slovak businesspeople to what we call "the green heart of Europe".
Thank you.