Luxembourg's parliament is playing under new rules, which require more development, and it must prepare for threats such as cyberattacks and other unknowns.
The modernisation of the Chamber regulations have already borne fruit: with just two more public plenary sessions than the previous year, parliament succeeded in adopting 40 bills – a total of 155 over the year.
Chamber president Claude Wiseler commented: "This means we were able to vote on more projects in the same amount of sessions. This was helped by the fact that speaking times were significantly shorter than in previous years."
Debates were moved to mornings, so the long debates which often dragged into the late evening were avoided. The faction presidents still need to carry out a debriefing on the new rules, but Wiseler concluded the developments were positive and said they would work on additional steps to render the Chamber more dynamic and transparent.
The live-streamed Chamber committee meetings have met with moderate success: "We aren't quite competing with RTL television with our livestream. We have between 5 and 100 people watching when we hold committee meetings, so not very many."
But the sessions are more popular when viewed on catch-up, above all those held by the education committee. On average, the replay of the sessions garner around 484 viewers. In total, the sessions were streamed 77,000 times on catch-up.
But digitalisation brings risks. In 2026 alone, the Chamber was targeted nine times by DDOS attacks, overwhelming their server capacities and rendering the website slow. In April there was a more serious incident where the IT network was hacked.
"It's already a big effort to make the Chamber secure. You can never be completely safe. But I want to say that our administration is putting a lot of work into it and is really doing the best it can, and so far we have been able to avoid major breakdowns or leaks."
A democratic institution such as a parliament will always have enemies. The question is therefore, how resistant is our form of government, if autocrats should take over, for example?
"The checks and balances that a government and a judicial system have between them, if someone were to act dishonestly: what would be the reaction from other powers?"
In 2025, the Chamber decided to commission a stress test from its scientific wing. Since then, the results have been published.
"How could a government suppress an opposition if it wanted to, and what could be done to limit that?"
The test also looked at analysis on muzzling the Luxembourgish press. It all sounds a little as though it could create the perfect handbook for a would-be autocrat.
"I know," Wiseler said. "That was a discussion we had, but the conclusion of the discussion was that someone who wants to do this will know what to do anyway. That means we aren't creating a playbook, as they would have their own handbook and blueprints taken from other countries."
He continued: "I hope the result is that we secure our democracy as it functions well, and also offer more security in the event of unknown dangers. But honestly I cannot see this happening in Luxembourg."
Vigilance is the way forward.
Over 160,000 Luxembourgers live abroad, or around 30%. The question remains how they can best participate in parliamentary elections. CSV leader Laurent Zeimet said the institutions committee had agreed to propose to the government that Luxembourgers abroad be allowed to vote electronically in a test phase.
On 17 October, the Chamber and the Grand Ducal Palace will open their doors to the public from 10am to 5pm. Admission is free and there is no need to register in advance.
