LFF 15th Anniversary

Following the legislative elections of October 2018, Xavier Bettel is currently serving in his second term as Prime Minister and Minister of State of Luxembourg in the coalition government formed by the Democratic Party, the Luxembourg Socialist Workers’ Party and the Green Party : on 5 December 2018 he was appointed Prime Minister, Minister of State, Minister for Communications and Media, Minister for Religious Affairs, Minister for Digitalisation and Minister for Administrative Reform.

A member of the DP since 1989, Xavier Bettel was elected to Parliament for the first time in 1999, at the age of 26. He was since reelected in 2004, 2009, 2013 and 2018.

At local level, Xavier Bettel was as municipal councilor (2000-2005) and later alderman (2005-2011) for the City of Luxembourg. As of 2011, he assumed the role of mayor – an office he held until his appointment as Prime Minister in December 2013.

Xavier Bettel holds a master’s degree in public and European law and a post-graduate diploma of advanced studies in political sciences and public law from the University of Nancy.

After graduating with an International Baccalaureate from the Canadian Academy International School in Kobe in 1989, Yuriko Backes obtained a bachelor’s degree in international relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1992. She then attended the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, where she successfully completed a master’s degree in Japanese studies in 1993. Yuriko Backes obtained a second master’s degree in European political and administrative studies from the College of Europe in Bruges in 1994.

On 5 January 2022, following the resignation of Pierre Gramegna, Yuriko Backes joined the coalition government between the Democratic Party (DP), the Luxembourg Socialist Workers’ Party (LSAP) and the Green Party (déi gréng) as Minister of Finance.

Yuriko Backes began her professional career in 1994 at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and has held various positions, including at the Permanent Representation of Luxembourg to the United Nations in New York, the Permanent Representation of Luxembourg to the Western European Union in Brussels, and the Luxembourg Embassy in Japan.

As attaché at the Directorate of European Affairs and International Economic Relations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Luxembourg, she was sworn in as a civil servant in 2001.

The career diplomat was then assigned to the Permanent Representation of Luxembourg to the European Union in Brussels from 2001 to 2006.

She continued her diplomatic career as deputy head of mission at the Luxembourg Embassy in Japan from 2006 to 2008 and as deputy head of the Directorate for International Economic Relations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Luxembourg from 2008 to 2010.

From 2010 to 2016, Yuriko Backes was the diplomatic adviser and sherpa to Luxembourg Prime Ministers Jean-Claude Juncker and Xavier Bettel.

She was the representative of the European Commission in Luxembourg from 2016 to 2020.

From June 2020 until her appointment to the government, she served as marshal of the Grand-Ducal Court.

Nicolas Mackel is CEO of Luxembourg for Finance, the Agency for the Development of the Financial Centre, since July 2013.

Nicolas is a career diplomat. He has graduated with a law degree from the University of Aix-en-Provence, and holds two post-graduate diplomas in European law from the Sorbonne University, respectively the College of Europe in Bruges where he then also served as a teaching assistant in the Law Department. He worked as a legal clerk at the European Court of Justice before joining the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1999. His assignments focused on the successive EU Treaty negotiations (Amsterdam, Nice, Constitution, Lisbon).

Nicolas was consecutively posted at Luxembourg’s Permanent Representation to the EU (2002-07), as Deputy Chief of Mission at Luxembourg’s Embassy in Washington DC (2007-11) and as Consul General in Shanghai (2011-13) where he was in charge of promoting Luxembourg’s economic interests throughout China as the Executive Director of the Luxembourg Trade and Investment Office.