Family and integration minister (DP) on 7 February presented the draft law on intercultural living together, which sets out a framework for various policy initiatives aimed at promoting the integration of foreigners in the country.

The OECD Luxembourg’s integration programmes. Despite a flurry of initiatives, it said help to integrate or learn one of Luxembourg’s official languages wasn’t effective and lacked coordination.

For example, it said that 240 hours of language lessons included in the welcome and integration contract aren’t enough to become sufficiently proficient to find a job. It also said the government wasn’t doing enough to engage with vulnerable immigrants.

The text presented on Tuesday “aims to replace the current ‘integration’ approach with a broader and more open approach to ‘intercultural living together,’” a press release said.

A national action plan for integration thus becomes the national action plan for intercultural living together. The welcome and integration contract and accompanied integration pathway--two initiatives open to newcomers to the country--are being replaced with the citizens’ pact and the programme for intercultural living together.

The programme will “offer a wide catalogue of learning modules and information about the grand duchy” and will be open to residents and cross-border workers.

The current welcome and integration contract is open to foreign residents only, providing discount vouchers for language courses as well as civic education lessons that can be credited towards obligations to acquire dual nationality at a later stage.

Around 47% of Luxembourg’s population are non-nationals, in addition to more than 200,000 cross-border workers who commute in the country. The share of foreigners is higher in some communes than in others, with Luxembourg City standing out with a non-national population of more than 70%. 

Foreigners’ council abolished

The 2021 OECD study was carried out as part of a broad consultation on reforming Luxembourg’s integration act. This also included feedback from the national council for foreigners, which is set to be abolished under the draft law.

The council and an inter-ministerial committee on integration will be replaced by a new so-called conseil supérieur. This will include state, civil society and local representatives. One of the OECD’s recommendations had been to make integration policy more local.

“The focus is on the municipalities,” a press release said. “Barriers to living together are most often identified at local level and the specificities of each region and municipality must be transmitted to the national level to ensure a coherent national strategy.”

Communes that sign on to the “Pakt vum Zesummeliewen” (the municipal pact for intercultural living together) will receive financial aid from the state for integration measures as well as resources in the shape of intercultural advisors, who will be employed by the state but work at local level.

Every commune in Luxembourg is obliged to set up an advisory committee on integration (CCCI). These will be replaced with committees on intercultural living together under the plans presented on Tuesday.

The new committees will help identify “priorities and possible obstacles in the field of intercultural living together” as well as “assisting the municipality in the development and implementation of measures and activities to promote intercultural living together.”

Members of the municipal committees will vote representatives to the conseil supérieur, which will also be open to cross-border workers who can join the municipal committee in the commune where they work.

The OECD study had said that while people from across the border were welcome to work in Luxembourg, little was being done to integrate them into society.

Foreign workers’ rights group Asti also on Tuesday, however, called for the foreigners’ committees to be scrapped altogether, saying that instead non-nationals should be included in existing bodies. Segregation should come to an end, the organisation said in a press release. 

The national council for foreigners (CNE) has long faced criticism of being ineffective and to isolated. For years its work was slowed down by disagreements between members and public leadership squabbles.

Only in 2021, the council had pledged that it was , promising better communication and lobbying for more resources to be able to do a better job.

Next steps

“In all the measures and bodies set up under this text, the fight against racism and all forms of discrimination at the level of the municipality is a key and transversal element,” the ministry said.

Members of parliament in 2020 had urged the government to develop a dedicated action plan against racism. Despite a study showing , Cahen said there would be no separate plan but that anti-racism actions are already included in existing documents.

The European Commission had strongly encouraged member countries to adopt national plans against racism and racial discrimination, publishing guidelines in March last year.

Luxembourg in the (Mipex) scored 64 out of 100 points, placing it in shared tenth place with Ireland and Brazil out of 52 countries. There has been no assessment since then, but the country had scored well based on making access to dual nationality easier and clamping down on discrimination.

It was weakest in the labour market category and the OECD in its 2021 analysis, too, said access to the labour market can be difficult for non-nationals, especially for refugees. Only 35% of Eritreans and Syrians in Luxembourg were able to find a job in the country, the study said.

The draft law must now be discussed in parliament and be analysed by the state council and other official bodies before it can be voted into force by lawmakers.