Luxembourg Launches New Gov Platform
Luxembourg's government has launched COSMOS, a new digital platform designed to streamline cooperation between the state and municipalities. The tool is aimed at civil servants and marks another step in the country's public sector digitalization efforts.
The COSMOS platform is a key component of Luxembourg's "Gouvernement numérique 2026-2030" strategy, a new phase in the country's digital transformation. This strategy aims to make all public services fully digital, inclusive, and based on the "Once Only" principle to reduce administrative burdens and improve the user experience. The development is being managed by the Government IT Centre (CTIE) in close collaboration with the Ministry for Digitalisation and the Ministry of Home Affairs. The new platform will replace the e-MINT system, which has been the required tool for exchange between the state and municipalities since February 2025, used by approximately 850 municipal and 25 ministerial officials. A 2025 user satisfaction survey indicated that the e-MINT platform had high user acceptance, and the technological advancements and new digitalization missions prompted the development of its successor, COSMOS. Development work is scheduled to begin by June 2026, with a phased rollout. The first major integration in 2027 will focus on merging various subsidy schemes and introducing a national municipal register. A second phase, starting in 2028, will integrate complex procedures like the general development plan (PAG) and the special development plan (PAP). Luxembourg's approach to digital government emphasizes user-centricity and innovation, driven by entities like the GovTech Lab. This lab fosters a culture of change by hosting co-creative workshops, designathons, and "GovTech Experiment" hands-on labs for civil servants to test ideas and collaborate on new digital solutions. This open innovation model brings external expertise from startups, research, and the private sector into the public sector design process. All public sector digital platforms in Luxembourg must adhere to strict accessibility standards. The law of 28 May 2019 mandates compliance with the European standard EN 301 549, which is based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. The Government IT Centre's (CTIE) dedicated Web & UX service is tasked with implementing these standards and is developing a unified design system to ensure a consistent and high-quality user experience across all government services. For comparison, Germany's Online Access Act (OZG) has driven the creation of platforms like the OZG-Cloud in the state of Schleswig-Holstein. This open-source platform serves over half of the state's municipalities, providing access to more than 820 online services and demonstrating a scalable model for federal-municipal digital cooperation. Estonia's X-Road platform stands as a mature and foundational model for interoperability. Launched in 2001, it is a decentralized data exchange layer that securely connects hundreds of public and private sector databases and services. This architecture enables the "once-only" principle, saving the country an estimated 1,345 years of working time annually by eliminating redundant data entry and paperwork.
