Photo: ITU Pictures (CC BY 2.0)

He never sits between the chairs, but on all the chairs at the same time. How RTL host Jean-Louis Schiltz manages your money.

Once upon a time there was a man named Jean-Louis Schiltz, who had his fingers in pretty much every area of ​​Luxembourg life. If you have your fingers in something, it’s often called a „board of directors“. The board of directors is responsible for many things in the company, such as overseeing finances, personnel policy, etc., etc.

Jean-Louis Schiltz was a board member of the Luxembourg beer companies: Bofferding, Battin and Brasserie Nationale. Yes, all three! Actually, Mr. Schiltz was a lawyer by profession, and therefore ran a law firm that naturally bore his name: Schiltz&Schiltz. There he was considered a „pioneer of the FinTech industry“ - this is a dark part of the financial sector, where a lot of money is created in mysterious ways.

In addition, the beer manager and FinTech lawyer also made himself useful at times as a board member at the Swiss company „Quilvest“. Quilvest is a company that operates asset management - so something that everyone can use in their everyday lives. Not to forget, the good Jean-Louis is also a visiting professor at the University of Luxembourg. We see: The mysterious man is therefore a beer-FinTech-lawyer-asset management professor. But that’s not enough! At the Business Federation Luxembourg (FEDIL), Jean-Louis Schiltz is no less than vice president. At the moment, he was also on the „Conseil consultatif sur les ressources spatiales“ founded by Etienne Schneider to promote Luxembourg’s space mining project.

And then there was the matter of the hospitals. In clinics, there are not only sick and dying people, but also money, and that’s why Jean-Louis Schiltz had a completely different job at the top of the Robert Schumann hospitals. And as…? That’s right, as chairman of the board. Unfortunately, a small mishap happened to him there in 2021. You remember: the Corona pandemic brought everything to a standstill, and then the vaccines finally arrived. In addition to the elderly and sick, the hospital staff were of course to be vaccinated first. However, Jean-Louis is reluctant to let others take the lead. And because he practically managed the clinic, so to speak, he was part of the hospital staff, he secretly got an early vaccination. Well, he then tragically had to give up that job. We would still like to console Jean-Louis Schiltz as a beer-asset management-FinTech-space lawyer and hospital-fedil-guest professor with all his titles. But we left out one important area: Politics.

A political prodigy

In politics, you gather all the important elements for a career as a board member: you gather contacts, insider knowledge and you perhaps even create legal conditions that could later turn out to be extremely useful. To understand how Jean-Louis Schiltz became our professional prodigy, we have to go back a bit. Between 2004 and 2009, Jean-Louis Schiltz - in addition to his additional task as Governor of the „Banque asiatique pour le développement“ had a particularly promising side job: Minister of Communications of Luxembourg. How did it come about?

Since 2000, Jean-Louis Schiltz had worked as Secretary General of the CSV and was quickly considered a kind of neoliberal hope for the party. His commitment to the then-powerful state party paid off. Immediately after his first election, in which he was only elected 8th on the center list, Jean-Louis Schiltz was given a ministerial position. At first, however, it was only the cooperation and the title of delegated minister for communication - a somewhat more modest portfolio for such an ambitious altruist. During the legislative period, it was therefore reshuffled. To relieve Luc Frieden, Jean-Louis Schiltz, a passionate father of three children, also took over the defense ministry and had the ridiculous title of „Ministre délégué“ converted into a more decent one: Minister of Communication.

The CLT-UfA Minister

As Minister of Communications in Luxembourg, Jean-Louis Schiltz had one primary task: to protect the interests of CLT-UfA (the group behind RTL Luxembourg) and to make things as comfortable as possible for the Bertelsmann subsidiary in Luxembourg. This also includes the Luxembourg politician advocating for the group’s interests at European level, for example defending the „country of origin principle“. The point here is that for programs that are „broadcast“ from Luxembourg but are viewed abroad, Luxembourg rules still apply. And no, this does not mean RTL TV Luxembourg, but the many other TV programs that belong to RTL Group, e.g. produced and viewed in the Netherlands, in France (M6), Belgium and many other countries (Status 2007, p.11). They all wanted to escape local laws and benefit from the more favorable framework in Luxembourg, i.e. lower taxes, fewer regulations and controls and a broader framework for advertising and product placement. Fortunately, Jean-Louis Schiltz had a good ally at the EU level: Vivianne Reding was conveniently the EU Commissioner for Media at the time.

Under JL’s responsibility, RTL also received special treatment at the national level, in the form of a special, semi-state statute. This was to allow state money to be poured into the corporation in the future. RTL fulfills a „public service mission“ that is comparable to other „public-law“ media, it was once said. Based on this idea, the private corporation in Luxembourg was put in a position to prevent the emergence of a true public-law television in the future. On Valentine’s Day 2007, Jean-Louis Schiltz signed a new public service contract for the state with CLT-UFA, coincidentally just three days after Luxembourg finally celebrated its victory at European level. Thomas Rabe, then CFO of Bertelsmann, came to Luxembourg especially for this purpose and, together with Jacques Santer, then chairman of the CLT-UFA board of directors, put his body on paper on the side of the corporation.

When politics gets too boring

In 2009, Jean-Louis Schiltz ran for a second time. As the third-placed candidate on the CSV list in the centre, it was strangely not enough to retain another ministerial post. Jean-Louis Schiltz then became the CSV faction spokesman in the Chamber, a position that he obviously found extremely boring, so that he finally threw the reins to the political drum just 2 years later and returned to his beloved private sector. „I’m going back to where I came from […] I knew that I wouldn’t retire from politics,“ Jean-Louis Schiltz said at the time on RTL-Mikro. Politics is shocked, it was not expected. What motivates Jean-Louis Schiltz to take this step? Is it an affair from his time as Minister of the Army that had legal repercussions? One can only speculate.

However, it seems clear that Jean-Louis Schiltz had a enlightening experience during his time as parliamentary group leader - probably his first seat on a prestigious board of directors. In fact, since the beginning of the new legislative term, a new tradition has been emerging in the Chamber. It is the parliamentary group leaders of the three largest parties who now also sit on the board of directors of the CLT-UFA - as a representation of Luxembourg society. In 2011, Jean-Louis Schiltz handed over his seat on the board to his successor at the head of the CSV parliamentary group, Lucien Thiel, but he himself remained on the board in his own name. It was probably the most ultimate change from a representative of the people to a representative of his own wallet that has ever been seen. And for Jean-Louis Schiltz it’s just the beginning of his new career.

A Somersault Mortal, as you’ve never seen it before

Back in the private sector, lawyer Jean-Louis Schiltz begins to collect board seats and launches into his career as a beer-asset-FinTech-lawyer-Fedils-professor. But at the same time, he, the former Minister of Communications, is also climbing the career ladder within RTL Group. In 2017, the next important step comes: Jean-Louis Schiltz replaces Jacques Santer at the head of the CLT-UFA board of directors. And in this capacity, he can even sign the renewal of the state contract with RTL! That is, the same contract that he has already drafted once from the other side. But this time from the side of the media group. Applause for this somersault!

Has Jean-Louis Schiltz served the private sector with all his insider knowledge from the moment he left the government? No, basically already before. Has he been able to create advantages for the company with his contacts, in the style of Gaston Thorn? Possible, but for such an honest person, for whom the public interest is so important, it is rather unlikely, isn’t it? In 2022, the insider from Luxembourg politics will have his coronation at the Bertelsmann Group: Jean-Louis Schiltz will become one of the most important people at RTL Group, namely Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors. Congratulations, dear media-beer-asset management-FinTech-space-lawyer-hospital-Fedil-guest professor.