A Voice In My Head Says English Should Not Become An Official Language of Luxembourg

On Tuesday 2 December 2025, Luxembourg’s Chamber of Commerce released a paper detailing 34 recommendations to “strengthen talent attractiveness, development and retention in Luxembourg”. Among them was the recommendation that English should become one of Luxembourg’s official administrative languages.

In post-Brexit Europe, in what could be regarded as the most European of European countries, there is a certain irony in the suggestion from an official institute of Luxembourg that English should sit alongside Luxembourgish, French and German as one of its administrative languages.

Having first lived in the Grand Duchy from 1998 to 2004, my return in 2017 was to a very familiar yet entirely different country. During my first steps back on the familiar ground of Place d’Armes I was immediately struck by three things: the sheer number of people; the vast array of nationalities; and English being spoken everywhere.

At first I attributed this to the very noticeable increase in tourism which Luxembourg has seen over the decades but, after venturing further afield to rediscover other once-familiar parts of a city I hadn’t re-visited since 2006, I quickly realised that English was now an integral part of communication in the city, if not many parts of the country.

During my initial years here, English was a language reserved for the office and a few choice establishments where one would socialise, mostly with people who spoke English. At first, restaurants, the cinema and shops were all approached with a slight trepidation, knowing it would be necessary to communicate (mostly) in French but it was a learning experience which has proved useful in practical terms and valuable in social terms. It also encouraged me to pick up words and phrases in Italian, German, Spanish and, significantly for Luxembourg, Portuguese, who make up 14.5% of the country’s total population (and are not asking for Portuguese to be made an administrative language).

Yet it is obvious in 2025 that English is pervasive here. In addition to being used in many industrial sectors (ICT, etc.) and companies, it has seemed to have overtaken French as the lingua franca in groups of people of mixed nationality out for a social drink or meal. It is the default language of much of the media we consume in the internet-connected West, it is a flexible lexicon and, comparatively, it isn’t that difficult to learn. These are just some of the reasons why it is so popular in Luxembourg and growing in popularity in other European countries. It has after all been a second language in the Scandinavian countries for decades, most of the Dutch and Germans that I have encountered speak it very well due to its inclusion in their education system and Eastern Europeans were quick to recognise the value of knowing English when the European Union opened up in 2004 and work opportunities became available. 

However, I can understand why there would be a hesitancy to make English an administrative language in the Grand Duchy. I can imagine that some would see it as a further dilution of an integral part of Luxembourg’s identity. Let us be honest, the reason many non-natives in the country choose to learn Luxembourgish is not based on the desire to be able to communicate easily with one’s neighbours. It is the want to pass the sproochentest in order to obtain Luxembourgish nationality. As is often the case, once the language certification is achieved, the lessons learned are forgotten. After all, if you don’t use it you lose it and who would use it if you can speak English everywhere?

The Chamber of Commerce highlighted in its paper that nearly 40% of residents do not speak Luxembourgish at home or at work and its use as a primary language fell by 6.9% between 2011 and 2021. No doubt in response to this trend, Luxembourg’s Ministry of Culture and the Centre for the Luxembourgish Language have for the past few years been steadily introducing and improving access to language learning assets which were previously non-existent. This should be applauded and embraced by non-speaking Luxembourg residents but their existence is often overlooked in the country’s non-Luxembourgish language media.

The main aspect of the Chamber of Commerce’s suggestion lies in the mandatory teaching of English during education. Having not attended a school in decades, I often feel very sympathetic to the pressures of modern education on children in Luxembourg. Surely, from the perspective of someone coming from the almost mono-lingual British Isles, having three languages to learn across the curriculum is already enough to induce brain melt. Adding a fourth, for those not from an English-speaking household would surely be a burden too far. If the curriculum came down to choice then one or more of the three current administrative languages will certainly suffer given the ubiquity of English in the digital world.

And who would benefit from the official recognition of English? It’s already here and accommodated by many of the country’s administrative websites and dedicated English-speaking media has existed in Luxembourg for several years. This reveals that the main beneficiaries would be employers and existing residents.

In the ever more connected business world, English is, by far, the language of trade. With Luxembourg’s main industries being financial services, ICT and digital development, it would certainly benefit these workplaces (and employers) if English became an official administrative language - opening up the employment market to entice the best English-speaking talent and creating an anchor of sorts to retain it. However, outside of those workplaces it is a different story. Many of those currently working in the construction, HORECA, commercial, leisure and entertainment industries may have a basic knowledge of English but their trade is more often than not conducted in French. This is no surprise given the large number of cross-border workers who are employed in these areas.

Would the introduction of more English speakers to the Grand Duchy force a requirement on those workers to learn English? (both actively and passively). And what of existing employees, both resident and cross-border, who currently do not speak English? Will the onus be on them to upskill to English to accommodate a shift in their employers’ requirements?

This also opens up questions in relation to immigration and the future profile of the population of Luxembourg. Given the current political climate across Europe and the rising disdain fuelling right-wing politics in relation to immigration, the adoption of English as an administrative language would certainly attract a different profile of migrant (or, to use that horrible phrase: “Expat”) which will no doubt vex people on both sides of that particular argument. Why learn Luxembourgish or French at all if English were to dominate in the way it has elsewhere?

As the Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce paper succinctly put it: “Luxembourg’s linguistic diversity is a valuable asset and reflects an open, multicultural society” but “the linguistic environment needs to evolve while maintaining national multilingualism”. This is a very difficult balance to strike, even more so when the national identity of a relatively small percentage of a very small country is potentially at stake of dilution as generations progress. This small percentage also currently controls a large percentage of the already problematic property market and benefits from well remunerated public employment which adheres to very specific language requirements necessitating a strong knowledge of Luxembourgish.

With ongoing arguments about the projected future growth requirements in the Grand Duchy and the future funding of the country’s pension system, the Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce may have its best intentions at the heart of its suggestion of English becoming an official administrative language but it may have inadvertently opened a proverbial “D’Këscht vu Pandora”.