After the car, a new quack for Philippe and Mathilde during the state visit to the Grand Duchy

People

Every day of the state visit to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, his little anecdote: after the recalcitrant engine of the car in which took place the royal couple Tuesday is the symposium on the space he attended this Wednesday afternoon which was briefly evacuated as a result of a fire alarm.

When the alarm went off, followed by the start-up of a large wind tunnel, Elio Di Rupo, the Walloon minister-president, was on the microphone.

A quarter of an hour later, after everyone had returned to the audience at the Neumunster Abbey in the heart of the city of Luxembourg, Mr. Di Rupo resumed his presentation, pointing out, with humor, that he "did not come with the intention of setting the room on fire".

This past event, the symposium on space, organized by AWEX and the Walloon competitiveness cluster Skywin, was above all an opportunity to highlight the investments made by the two countries in the space sector, a sector whose turnover will surge in the years to come – from 350 to 1.100 billion dollars in 2040, according to forecasts of the Morgan stanley office, quoted by Pascale Delcomminette, the managing director of AWEX. "The investments of Belgium and Luxembourg respond to these challenges," she added at the end of the seminar.

"Belgium and Luxembourg are the two countries that invest the most, per capita, in the space sector," Elio Di Rupo previously said.

In Wallonia, the aerospace sector represents, according to Skywin's figures, some 7,500 jobs and 1.6 billion euros in turnover (1,350 million for aeronautics and 250 million for space), of which 90% for export.