déi Gréng
EU RANK: 16 (Tier 1: Top Performance)
déi Gréng (The Greens) are a progressive green party advocating environmental protection, social justice and pro‑European integration, and are a member of the European Green Party. After a decade in government, they lost ground in the October 2023 election, winning 8.55% and 4 seats, and moved into opposition when CSV and DP formed a centre‑right coalition. Since October 2024 the party has been co‑led by Stéphanie Empain and François Benoy, who aim to rebuild support around climate policy, housing and civil‑rights issues.
Disinformation and alternative media
déi Gréng communicate mainly through mainstream outlets, RTL, Luxemburger Wort, Tageblatt, Le Quotidien, and digital platforms, using professional social‑media campaigns but not a dedicated ecosystem of fringe or conspiratorial media. Their messaging focuses on climate transition, sustainable transport, housing, and equality, and they frequently support fact‑checking and transparency initiatives in debates on environment and social policy. Studies of Luxembourg’s media landscape and political communication highlight structural concentration and legacy party–media affinities but do not identify déi Gréng as a major source of disinformation or coordinated online manipulation.
Foreign influence and external alignments
The party is strongly pro‑EU and pro‑NATO, framing climate policy, social justice and human rights as areas where Luxembourg should lead within Europe. At EU level, déi Gréng sit with the Greens/EFA group and support deeper European integration on climate, taxation of multinationals and rule‑of‑law mechanisms, while backing sanctions against Russia and aid to Ukraine in line with the national consensus. Analyses of foreign influence in Luxembourg focus on corporate tax politics and EU‑level transparency issues rather than on green parties, and there is no evidence of structured ties between déi Gréng and authoritarian regimes or state‑aligned foreign media.
Media capture, advertising and public service media
Luxembourg’s media market is highly concentrated and historically featured ideological affinities—Editpress/Tageblatt with the left and Saint‑Paul/Luxemburger Wort with Christian‑social milieus—but major outlets are now owned by commercial groups such as Mediahuis and Editpress rather than by parties directly. déi Gréng have no structural ownership stakes in major media and rely on regular press relations, issue campaigns and social media; their influence on the media system has come mainly through policy, including support for the 2021 reform of press‑aid into a technology‑neutral, per‑journalist subsidy designed to sustain pluralism. As a mid‑sized party they receive significant state subsidies—about €645,000 in 2023—and modest disclosed donations (€40,190 in 2023), but there is no indication of attempts to use these funds to capture outlets via ownership or preferential public‑advertising schemes.
Corruption, litigation and institutional integrity
The main integrity episode touching déi Gréng in 2015–2025 was the Traversini/Dieschbourg building‑permit affair. In 2022 environment minister Carole Dieschbourg resigned after prosecutors asked parliament to lift her immunity in a probe related to municipal permits involving a Green colleague; this allowed the investigation to proceed but, as of 2025, judicial outcomes have been slow and no final conviction has been reported. The case generated political fallout and heightened scrutiny of conflicts of interest, yet it did not result in a criminal judgment against the party as an entity.
More broadly, litigation surveys note that Luxembourg has seen few party‑as‑entity convictions and that corruption is not considered systemic, with allegations typically investigated and oversight rules tightened in recent years. déi Gréng thus operate in an environment of relatively high integrity, with reputational risks mainly linked to individual ministerial controversies rather than to party‑wide funding or graft schemes; there is no record of party‑level criminal convictions for corruption or illegal financing in 2015–2025.
Press freedom, harassment and treatment of critical media
déi Gréng generally position themselves as defenders of press freedom and pluralism, supporting the 2021 press‑aid overhaul and statutory guarantees for RTL’s public‑service remit that are intended to sustain a diverse media ecosystem in a small market. They have not been associated with attempts to weaken editorial independence at RTL, Radio 100.7 or major newspapers, and public debates about political pressure on media focus more on structural concentration, historical party–press ties and privacy litigation than on Green‑driven interference.
There is no evidence of the party systematically using defamation suits, economic pressure or regulatory levers to intimidate critical journalists. Press‑freedom and media‑pluralism assessments for Luxembourg rank the country relatively high but warn about political‑control risk due to ownership concentration and weak conflict‑of‑interest rules; in these analyses, déi Gréng are not singled out as a major source of such risks, placing their direct impact on press freedom at the low end compared with actors more closely tied to legacy media structures.
| Dimension | Risk level | Short justification |
|---|---|---|
| Disinformation & alternative media | Low | Uses mainstream media and standard digital campaigning; not linked to conspiratorial outlets or coordinated disinformation networks. |
| Foreign influence & external alignments | Low | Pro‑EU, pro‑NATO green party in the European Green family; no evidence of structured ties to authoritarian regimes or foreign state‑aligned media. |
| Media‑capture & advertising / PSB control | Low–Medium | No media ownership; supports statutory, arms‑length press‑aid and RTL agreements, operating within a concentrated market but without signs of capture attempts. |
| Corruption & institutional‑integrity risk | Low–Medium | A ministerial permit probe led to a resignation but no party‑level conviction; overall environment features few party‑entity corruption cases. |
| Press‑freedom & harassment of media | Low | Publicly backs media pluralism and has not engaged in systematic legal or economic harassment of outlets, though it operates in a system with structural concentration risks. |