Teleworking should become more prevalent after the pandemic lockdown has shown the merits of the home office, Luxembourg's Green party said.

Teleworking gives people a "real work-life balance", cuts peak-hour traffic and reduces pollution, the party's presidents said on Thursday.

Workers across Luxembourg have not seen the inside of their offices for almost eight weeks, since the country went into lockdown on 16 March.

 

But many firms have been able to continue with business as usual with staff working from a distance, including cross-border workers logging in from neighbouring countries.

The Greens now want to maintain the "positive dynamic" of teleworking and make it part of a "new national strategy", presidents Djuna Bernard et Christian Kmiotek said at a conference. "Such a reform could be put in place in the short term," said Kmiotek.

Around 200,000 people normally cross into Luxembourg from France, Germany or Belgium every day to work. Since the lockdown, the long tailbacks on roads this is causing, have almost disappeared.

Luxembourg has been working on ways to make traffic run smoother. Last year, the government said it was planning on spending €60 million on roadworks to enable buses, taxis and car shares to drive on the hard shoulder during peak times on the motorway to Belgium. It is also planning on adding a third lane to the motorway into France.

But the two party presidents stressed that continuing working from home would significantly reduce the traffic glut, urging the government to invest more in environmentally friendlier solutions such as public transport, cycling lanes, and electric vehicles.