Yearbook 1999
Luxembourg. Visit Countryaah official website to get information about the capital city of Luxembourg. In the June parliamentary elections at the same time as the EU elections, the ruling party Party Chrétien Social (PCS, the Christian Socialists) lost two seats, but remained Luxembourg’s largest party with 19 of the 60 seats of the Chamber of Deputies. The party leader and Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker were therefore again given the task of forming a government.
- Also see Abbreviationfinder.org to see the acronym of LUX which stands for Luxembourg and other definitions of this 3-letter abbreviation.
But the PCS coalition partner since 1984, Party Ouvrier Socialiste Luxembourgeois (POSL, Luxembourg’s Socialist Workers’ Party), lost four seats. The party ended up in third place in the House with 13 seats after the Parti Démocratique Luxembourgeois (PDL, Luxembourg’s Democratic Party), which got 15 seats and thus joined the government coalition instead of POSL.
There were no major changes in the religious persecution following Stalin’s death in 1953, and the Catholic Church’s resistance continued to be linked to the defense of nationality. In 1972, the illegal bulletin of the Lithuanian Human Rights Movement called itself “The Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church.” That same year, the funeral of a young man triggered extensive clashes that cost 15 lives and led to 3,000 arrests.
The opening – glasnost – which began with Mikhail Gorbachov’s takeover of power in the Soviet Union triggered a comprehensive agitation in Lithuania. In June 1988, the Lithuanian Movement for Perestroika was formed, whose executive committee called itself Sejm – the name of the Lithuanian parliament during independence – and became known by the name of Sajudis. Sajudis established a kind of double power parallel to the official, demanding a return to the peace treaties recognizing the country’s independence, the Soviet invasion being the result of a secret agreement of no legal value.
In July, the League for Lithuanian Freedom stepped forward for the first time. It was formed in 1978 and now directly demanded the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the country, demanded independence and formulated plans for accession to the EU. The repression against this organization’s demonstrations sparked protests from both this and Sajudis and led to a crisis in the leadership of the Lithuanian Communist Party.
One of the main concerns of the Lithuanians, Latvians and Swedes was the Ignalina nuclear power plant in eastern Lithuania up one of the country’s largest national parks. Ignalina was projected by the Soviet Union to be the largest of its kind in the world with 4 reactors similar to those in Chernobyl. After massive protests in 1988, authorities closed the second reactor for safety reasons and halted the ongoing construction.
The Government of Lithuania did not want to go as far as Estonia’s Supreme Soviet, which had unilaterally declared Estonia independent. Instead, the Lithuanian government began to grant concessions to the nationalists, such as the reintroduction of the country’s flag and national anthem, recognition of Independence Day, acceptance of demonstrations, introduction of Lithuanian as the official language, and the restoration of the cathedral in Vilnius and other churches.
