Gay mayor Xavier Bettel has been named prime minister-designate of Luxembourg after his Democratic Party’s strong showing in October elections, and he is now in the midst of forming a coalition government with the Greens and the Socialists, BuzzFeed reports.
Xavier Bettel, who is the mayor of Luxembourg City, says his prospective deputy prime minister, Etienne Schneider of the Socialist Workers’ Party (LSDP) is also gay, Pink News says.
If negotiations go well, Bettel will join Belgium’s Elio di Rupo as the European Union’s only out prime ministers, according to media reports.
Bettel told BuzzFeed that he sought his partner Destenay Gauthier’s permission about taking up the portfolio, and was given the go-ahead despite Gauthier’s concerns.
“If he had said no, I would have to think whether I could accept it or not,” Bettel said in the report, adding that he and Gauthier are “a team for good times and bad.”
Apart from his focus on housing, unemployment, and the economy in general, Bettel says he wants to ensure that Luxembourg legalizes gay marriage by 2014.
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