Around a year and a half ago, news first came out that the American internet giant Google was looking to buy its largest data centre in Europe in one of the continent's tiniest countries: Luxembourg. Because planning is still in progress, it still hasn't been officially confirmed that Google will in fact be moving to the town of Bissen in the north of Luxembourg.
On Monday however, the Google data centre project took another important hurdle when the Bissen municipal council unanimously moved to reclassify the local urban development plan in order to make the "Busbierg" plot available to Google. The reclassification is however tied to certain conditions.
The municipal council has asked the government and a number of ministers to look into the matter before the council's second mandatory vote.
On Monday, the council was presented with the results of a strategic environmental impact assessment by Bissen mayor Jos Schummer and a consultancy study expert. It was pointed out that there would only be one special zone for the data centre activities. Studies exceeding the scope of the general urban development plan have been going on for almost two years now.
The results of Monday's local council meeting will have to be made public within the next 10 days and citizens will then have the chance of looking into the findings over a period of 30 days. They will be able to give their local councillors some feedback before the second mandatory vote in March.
