Worried you won’t be able to get Luxembourgish nationality with the usual methods? Try these six instead.
By Wise Expat Sage
Dear Wise Expat Sage,
I want a Luxembourgish passport, but I don’t want to have to wait forever or learn some weird language. Can you help me out?
-Seema
***
I understand your predicament. I myself have retaken the Luxembourgish A1.2 course nine times and I still can’t remember the difference between fueren and fuerzen.
Below are six alternative methods to obtain Luxembourgish nationality.
Be born here prior to 1900
If you can be born here prior to the year 1900, you’re in the club. Wëllkomm!
Become the Grand Duke’s pet
According to obscure laws from the 18th century, the monarch’s pet becomes de facto a subject (nowadays a citizen) of the Grand Duchy. You might not believe a human can be a pet, but according to the text, the royal pet may be “any animal of warm blood, excluding bats, Protestants, and werewolves.”
Luxembourgify your name
Civil servants don’t have time to scrutinize every nationality request. Often, if the name on the application sounds Luxembourgish enough, the form gets stamped as “gutt.” All you need to do, therefore, is legally change your name to one that’s typically Luxembourgish, something like Erasmus Ettelbréck or Pocahontas Péiteng. Alternatively, give yourself a French-sounding first name and a German-sounding last name. Jacques Weber or Yvette Schmidt should do. Having a Portuguese name can also be effective.
Eat 9.54 kg of kachkéis in one hour
Why 9.54 kilograms and not nine or ten? I don’t make the rules; I just report them. If you go for this option, make sure the Buergermeeschter (that’s mayor, you noob) is observing and singing the “Iesst Dat Gutt” song or you’ll have to do it a second time.
Become the Grand Duke or Grand Duchess
Hire a good genealogist to trace your lineage back to the Middle Ages. It’s possible that you’ve got a few drops of blue blood, and that you’re 18,488th in line to the Luxembourgish throne. If so, get some arsenic and get to work.
Stage a coup and form a new government entirely of non-citizen expats
It might sound hard to carry out a coup d’état and topple a government, but you only need to read the news to see that it’s done all the time. Once you’ve completed this step, declare yourself interim prime minister and form a non-citizen expat government. Now you can choose who gets Luxembourgish nationality, and you can look former Luxembourgish citizens in the eye and say, “How the tables have turned! Now, prove you have an A2.1 level of Jamaican patois if you want your nationality back.”
Hope that helps!
Wes is a wise expat sage who has lived in Luxembourg for precisely eight months longer than you.
Want to read more? Check out his other responses.
