Expo 2020 Dubai: Luxembourg first to break ground on construction of pavilion
Deputy Prime Minister tells Mustafa Alrawi how his country wants to be more than just a ‘fiscal paradise’
With a little more than 900 days left until Expo 2020 Dubai begins, momentum, as well as building works, are beginning to pick up the pace as Luxembourg has become the first country to break ground on the construction of its pavilion.
The area around the 4.38 square kilometre Expo site is already in a phase of intense construction as infrastructure and transport links are developed, but on Sunday, Etienne Schneider, Luxembourg’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Economy, was on hand to officially start work on the country’s pavilion.
It is the centrepiece of the country’s participation in the Expo, to which it has committed €25 million (Dh111.36m) of investment. Luxembourg was also the first country to sign up to partner with the UAE for the event.
“Hopefully this momentum will pick up and we will have all countries who are building pavilions start construction fairly soon,” said Najeeb Al Ali, executive director of Dubai Expo 2020 Bureau, who is hosting the fair.
“It is not only construction [that is needed] – countries have to put a lot of effort into the content prepared [for the pavilions] and the more time you have the more you can actually test the operations of your pavilion and focus on your content.”
Mr Al Ali said the Bureau target was for all infrastructure to be completed a year before the event begins.
Luxembourg’s pavilion is being designed by architects Metaform, who won the project last year after a competitive three-month selection process. Its design features a ramp to all floors with an overall spiral shape, within which there will be several exhibition areas and a restaurant. A curved, see-through slide will also be part of the pavilion.
Its theme is “resourceful Luxembourg” and the Grand Duchy is positioning itself as a hub for commercial space travel and asteroid mining. Sustainability, including tackling climate change and managing resources better, is a key theme of Dubai Expo 2020 as a whole.
“Our royal families have tight links and they know each other very well.
“Business between our two countries is quite important, especially in terms of financing projects in the UAE.
“We wanted to show there is more than financial business, that we have a vision for the
If we learn from the mistakes we did on Earth we can really do something great in space together ETIENNE SCHNEIDER Deputy Prime Minister of Luxembourg
Luxembourg is reshaping its global image as a “fiscal paradise”, marked by secret tax deals with companies such as Amazon and McDonald’s, into that of a centre of innovation at the heart of Western Europe.
Etienne Schneider, the Grand Duchy’s charismatic deputy prime minister and minister of economy, is keen to demonstrate through different initiatives – including its participation in Expo 2020 Dubai – that Luxembourg is at the forefront of industries such as space exploration, communications and sustainable development.
Mr Schneider did this symbolically and physically in a groundbreaking ceremony in the UAE yesterday for Luxembourg’s pavilion for Expo 2020.
“We want to show people that Luxembourg is much more than a financial centre, that it is an innovation centre as well,” he says. “We are trying to find the solutions to the problems of humanity in 20, 30, or 40 years.”
But perceptions of his homeland are tied to controversy in recent years, chiefly around the LuxLeaks scandal in 2014, then Amazon’s tax deal that was deemed illegal by the European Commission, and criticism of its financial opacity.
Luxembourg has been called the “Death Star” of financial secrecy by the Tax Justice Network. It is worth noting that since then, it has fallen a few places on the Network’s financial secrecy index after “significant improvements in its financial transparency”.
Mr Schneider acknowledges the realities that these past criticisms are still present today but also makes clear that perception does not necessarily match the current scenario.
“This government gave up everything related to tax secrecy,” he says. “We’re not a fiscal paradise any more, that you can say for sure. It takes ages to change your image. By the time of LuxLeaks it wasn’t possible to do these kinds of [tax] businesses, these kind of affairs.
“We stopped it but all these stories dated back to 10 years ago. So you always have to fight with this old image that we don’t want to have any more.”
Mr Schneider says what is important now is that Luxembourg is able to show people that “we’re not only interested in making short-term money because we are investing huge amounts in new activities in space, where there is no money to be had for the moment”.
In the long term, however, this will be to the benefit of all mankind, he says. It is in this spirit that Luxembourg has signed co-operation agreements with countries such as the UAE, China, Russia and Japan with regards to the commercial space sector.
“We want to do this as a project of humanity,” Mr Schneider says. “How are we going to develop and shape our future of using Outer Space? If we learn from the mistakes we did on Earth we can really do something great in space together.”
This is a message that could be at the heart of his bid to become prime minister when Luxembourg holds elections for its Chamber of Deputies late next year.
His Socialist Workers’ Party may seem an incongruous fit in a state that has the second highest GDP per capita in the world, but Mr Schneider believes that the left is ready to shape the future, despite the seeming dominance of a populist right-wing across much of Europe.
“Socialism is always linked in public opinion to old-fashioned or ‘stay where you are’ ideas and I really want to show new ways and show there is a bright future,” Mr Schneider says. “People are getting a little bit frightened about their future.
“Now you see that these right-wing parties are gaining ground and left-wing parties are losing ground, you need a new project, you need to show people that they should have confidence in their future and that there are ways for a bright future. That’s a little bit of what I am trying to do in my small country.”
He does believe that small countries can shape the world, which was an important factor behind the Grand Duchy’s decision to take part in Expo 2020 Dubai, having decided not to take part in Milan’s world’s fair in 2015 because its overall theme was not a good fit.
“Connectivity, which is one of the themes of the Expo, was already important during the 1920s for us and gave us a very positive image with other countries,” Mr Schneider says.
While Luxembourg is geographically and population-wise among the smallest countries in the world, it has a long history of thinking bigger, having been a founder member of the European Economic Community, the precursor to the EU, and of the military alliance Nato. So does Mr Schneider worry about the effects that the polarised political landscape is having on the belief in the strengths of multilateralism?
“The UAE is playing a very important role in that, because with the Expo 2020 where all these countries are to participate, you can send this image and this message to everyone [of the strength of multilateralism],” he says.
After the Brexit vote in the UK, Mr Schneider says that the European project will endure because “there is no other choice”, but it will need new ideas if it is not to break apart.
“We have to think about the leadership in Europe, the way the Commission is working,” he says
. “I sometimes feel they are a little bit fazed with what people would like them to do and regulate and care about.”
Mr Schneider highlights European parliamentary elections next year as an opportunity to fight for a stronger Europe. “We really have to work hard at it and we have to give new dreams to our people.”