Background
"The freedom to express one's opinions and the freedom of the press are guaranteed, apart from offences committed during the exercise of these freedoms. - Censorship cannot be established" (article 23 of the Luxembourg Constitution).
The Luxembourg constitution guarantees freedom of the press in Luxembourg. In 1848, four newspapers were launched: the first socialist newspaper, a newspaper calling itself "patriote ", a new Catholic newspaper and the first satirical newspaper. Following the abolition of stamp duty in 1848, newspapers had become cheaper and the number of readers began to grow considerably.
The Press Council is a joint body composed of journalists and editors. All journalists, editors and contributors are subject to the Press Council's Code of ethics. It was created in 1979 to recognize and protect the professional title of journalist.
The current press landscape in Luxembourg
Today, the readership of the print press is very high in Luxembourg. More than two-thirds of the population read one or more newspapers. It is therefore not surprising that Luxembourg is also one of the OECD countries in which the circulation of paid daily newspapers has decreased the least.
Luxembourg has a large number of newspapers for a relatively small population. More than 120 daily newspapers are read in Luxembourg, of which four are paid-for national dailies. The national dailies offer information on international news, national politics, local news and miscellaneous news.
The Luxembourg press also responds to the multilingual tradition of the population and the needs of foreign residents, publishing articles in French, German, Luxembourgish, Portuguese and English. It is even common to find articles in several languages on the same page, although German continues to predominate.
State subsidy
In order to maintain this array of media pluralism, produced by professional publishers, the national press has benefited since 1976 from a relatively high level of State subsidy, which has been adapted to the current context by the law of 30 July 2021 on an aid scheme in favour of professional journalism. Specific support for the online press has been in place since 2017. The amounts of press aids are published annually on the Open Data Portal.
In May 2020, the Government introduced an extraordinary allowance for the media as part of the Covid-19 pandemic.