Dear listeners,
On Sunday, 27 June, a decision will be made in Luxembourg regarding the 13th communal merger since 2004. The people of the communes of Grosbous and Wahl from the canton of Redange will on that day vote on a common future on a communal level.
At the moment, the merger of the Nordstad and the merger of Bous and Wahldbredimus are also being planned.
It took about 3 years to plan the Groussbus and Wahl merger. In the beginning, these were mostly interesting discussions with the aldermen, the municipal councils as well as the administrative and technical staff down to workshops and the establishment of the SWOT study, the so-called strengths and weaknesses analysis. Towards the end of the process, we organized 9 information conferences under Covid conditions, in order to answer to people’s more specific questions.
The government supports municipal mergers which is a good thing. The ultimate goal is to be able to provide the same sorts of services to all people in the country – regardless of which municipality they might live in. A merger is not a means to an end in itself. It should provide people with a more efficient general administration and better services. It should also provide some financial leeway, which should go beyond the one-off endowment provided by the state.
Grosbous and Wahl are among the five municipalities with the fewest inhabitants in Luxembourg. If the people vote YES, we would reach around 2,200 citizens. These are still not very many, but we would increase our visibility and have more of an impact and a voice in certain matters.
No means to an end also in the sense that services will not be merged if there is no reasonable grounds to do so. Whatever is working well at the moment, shall continue to do so going forward. Nonetheless, there are obvious advantages in terms of growth development, mobility, clubs, the acquisition of materials, staff or infrastructures – just to name a few.
The be-all and end-all of a municipal merger is involving the population. Therefore, all the villages will keep their identity, whether the commune grows bigger and changes its name or not. The aim is to improve our organizational, personnel and financial situation in the future. For the benefit of the people.
Four our citizens to receive the same services as they do in the rest of the country. So that we can meet the expectations of a modern and efficient commune.
