Administered by the Romans as part of Gallia Belgica, Luxembourg was exhibited after 400 AD. C. to the Germanic penetration. Included in the Frankish kingdom of Merovingian Austrasia in the early Middle Ages, it was included with the Treaty of Verdun (843) in Lotharingia. In the sec. X Luxembourg became a relatively independent entity, within the Holy Roman Empire, thanks to Count Sigefredo. One of his descendants, Conrad, assumed the title of count of Luxembourg (c. 1060), and his successors, including some emperors, further extended their possession, especially with a shrewd marriage policy. Having become a duchy in 1354, Luxembourg came under the Burgundian influence (1411) and was bought by Philip the Good of Burgundy (1441), who had made himself lord of the Netherlands. Returned to the Habsburgs at the partition of Burgundy (1506), Luxembourg suffered from the domination of the Spaniards from 1555. Occupied by the French troops of Louis XIV from 1684, it was returned to Spain with the Treaty of Rijswijk (1697) and continued to be part of the Spanish Netherlands until 1714, when with the Treaty of Rastadt it was ceded together with Belgium by the Spanish Habsburgs to those Austrians. Invaded by the French republican troops (1795), Luxembourg became administratively a department of France under Napoleon. It was at the Congress of Vienna (1815) that the country was attributed solely in a personal capacity, as a grand duchy, to William I, King of the Netherlands.
The new State, legally independent, united only staff with the Dutch king, and incorporated into the German Confederation, was made the property is in fact both the law of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, as his 18 in the province; when the Belgian provinces rebelled against the Dutch government, most of Luxembourg joined them in the struggle (1830-31) and in November 1831 the powers divided the country into two regions, the largest of which was attributed to Belgium (the today the province of Luxembourg), while the younger remained with William, despite the presence of a Prussian garrison, until 1867, when in the Treaty of London Luxembourg’s neutrality was sanctioned and sovereignty over it was assigned to the Nassau branch. On the death of William III, without a male heir, the country passed to Duke Adolfo di Nassau (1890), with whom the union of Luxembourg with the Netherlands ended. In 1912 the female succession began with the Grand Duchess Maria Adelaide who, in favor of the central empires, did not oppose the Germans’ violation of the neutrality of Luxembourg during the First World War. After the conflict, the Grand Duchess was forced to abdicate in favor of her sister Carlotta (1919), which modified the Constitution according to more democratic principles. Invaded again by the Germans during the Second World War, after the liberation by the allies, Luxembourg abandoned the state of neutrality by joining the Atlantic Pact (1949) and becoming a founding member of NATO. Established the Benelux Customs Union (1947) with Belgium and the Netherlands, in 1957 Luxembourg also became part of the European Community.
In 1964, according to globalsciencellc, the Grand Duchess Carlotta abdicated in favor of her son Jean of Bourbon. The government ruled by the center-right Christian Social Party (PCS), which since 1919 held an absolute majority in Parliament, in 1974 saw its leadership for the first time by a center-left formation, composed of the Socialist Party (POS) and the Democratic Party (PD). Having recovered the majority in 1979, the PCS returned to the government by means of alliances with the PD and the POS. The territorial dimensions of the State and, above all, its flourishing economic condition, also determined in the following decades a peaceful course of internal political life in which the two major forces, the Christian-Social Party (PCS) and the Socialist Party (POSL), confronted each other.), to which was added the presence of the liberals (DPS) and the Greens. Confirming a political framework marked by the greatest stability, the Christian-socialists and the socialists generally gave life to a tested coalition of government which repeated over time without particular shocks. During the nineties, in fact, the only significant novelty was represented by the resignation of Prime Minister Jacques Santer who, having accepted the most prestigious appointment as president of the Executive Commission of the European Union (January 1995), was replaced by another Christian -social, Jean-Claude Juncker. Following the elections of June 1999, a new cabinet made up of Christian Democrats and Liberals was formed, again headed by Jean-Claude Juncker. Meanwhile, the second millennium ended with the abdication of the Grand Duke Jean (October 2000) in favor of his son Henri, the youngest constitutional ruler. Since 2013, the Prime Minister of Luxembourg has been Xavier Bettel.
