Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel has presented his three-way coalition an official end to the 18-year reign of Jean-Claude Juncker as the longest-standing government leader in the European Union.
Today's coalition presentation highlighted the swift emergence of 40-year-old Bettel, the Liberal who formed a coalition with the socialists and the greens to keep Juncker's Christian Democrats out of power for the first time since the 1970s.
In the snap elections in October, the Liberal, Socialist and Green parties won a total of 32 seats. The victory was enough to form a majority coalition in the country's 60-seat, unicameral Parliament, even though Juncker's Christian Democrats remained the biggest party with 23 seats.
Bettel has said that his coalition will also try to hold down spending while raising Luxembourg's value-added tax.
