https://www.rtl.lu/news/national/a/2118530.htmlThe statement, which begins “No, Mrs Back” addresses Nora Back, president of the Independent Luxembourg Trade Union Confederation (OGBL). It says the union has misinterpreted the party’s stance on the index.
In the OGBL’s analysis of party manifestos, the trade union wrote that:
“FOKUS confuses the structural increase in the minimum social wage, demanded for a long time by the OGBL, with the adaptation of wages to inflation. The party thus comes out in favour of a capped index which, let us repeat, is not the appropriate way to establish a fairer salary hierarchy. Ultimately, FOKUS’s index policy will bring nothing to lower salary levels. It will even call into question, in the long term, the entire indexing mechanism.”
Fokus, which was founded in part by former CSV president Frank Engel, opposes the idea of the capped index introduced by Jean-Claude Juncker in 2013, and also opposes shifting or dropping index tranches.
In the press release, published on Friday, Fokus says the party supports a “social” index, which would see 3% per index tranche added to lower salaries, rather than the current 2.5%. This rate would then progressively decrease to 2.5% for annual salaries up to €100,000 and then to 0% up to €250,000 annual income.
Fokus added that the party “also wants to abolish the so-called “cold progression”, which results from the fact that the tax tables are not adjusted to the index instalments, which is a hidden tax increase.”
