In her official response, Minister for Home Affairs Taina Bofferding explained that since only very few municipalities transmit data to the Ministry, her overview of towns that award the “solidarity support” is very limited. The government’s list only counts eleven out of 102 potential towns.
Aside from standard government support, low-income families are eligible to received financial aid from their respective municipality. Each town is however free to regulate this process in terms of amounts and eligibility.
Among the eleven municipalities that have forwarded data on their 2020 allocations are Remich (€193,199.42), Stadtbredimus (€26,137.06), and Grevenmacher (€51,628.93).
The municipality of Differdange has since reacted to Minister Bofferding’s response and underlines that the town has been regularly allocating and adjusting the solidarity support for low-income families. Secretary general Henri Krecké stated: “For years we adjusted the rate ourselves, but then decided to base our support on the government’s aids for high living expenses in 2019 to facilitate administrative procedures.”
Krecké further elaborated that after the government doubled its support as a consequence to the pandemic, the municipality of Differdange followed suit and increased the allocation from 15 to 30% of the government aid: “During a meeting of the municipal council on 19 January, we decided to increase the solidarity support even further to 50%. It might be interesting to know that this now equals an amount of €1.4 million.”
Differdange’s secretary general elaborated that inflation continues to affect low-income families to this day and that the council will continue to monitor the situation. He concluded: “I am also certain that aside from Differdange, many other southern towns have been allocating the solidarity support consistently for years.”
