On Saturday, February 19, leftist and working class groups of Beles, Luxembourg protested the closure of the public sector post office in the town and the increase in postal charges. The protest was called by the Communist Party of Luxembourg (KPL). Activists from Union des Femmes Luxembourgeoises (UFL) and Déi Lénk (The Left) also participated in the protest.
Protesters urged the government and the management of state-owned Post Luxembourg to stop the closure of post offices and withdraw the increase in postal charges. The protest meeting in Beles was addressed by KPL president Ali Ruckert, UFL president Irène Bigler and municipal councillor Patrizia Arendt from Déi Lénk.
Post Luxembourg, a state-owned corporation, announced a hike in postal charges in October last year. From January 10, 2022, a monthly fee of EUR 2 (USD 2.27) for postal check accounts has been imposed while transactions on paper and at the counter have become significantly more expensive. As per estimates, imposing an extra fee on 200,000 postal check accounts and a rise in the cost of around 600,000 transactions on paper and 540,000 counter transactions will result in a large income for the government at the expense of the customers. Many postal customers only noticed this rise after they received their bank statement at the beginning of February. Post Luxembourg also intends to close down its post offices in Beles, Mamer, Rümelingen and Wasserbillig. The Post Luxembourg group is among the largest employers in the country.
While addressing the protest demonstration in Beles on Saturday, Ruckert asked the government, “where is the promise of the best services when dozens of postal agencies across the country are closed, where the promise of a simple and transparent pricing policy, when all counter fees are increased and in the future you even have to pay 48 euros (USD 54.46) a year for a postal check account?”
He added that the board of directors and the general directorate of Post Luxembourg as well as the government are radically dismantling the network of postal agencies for profit motives, against the interests of many postal customers and without offering any equivalent citizen-oriented alternative. He also accused the postal authorities of having previously destroyed the postman statute for reasons of austerity and now wanting to close most of the post offices across the country.
