Elections in Luxembourg: legislative, municipal and European

The electoral chapter is short, highly codified, and yields easy marks provided you know three or four figures. It is also where multiple-choice questions play most on similar durations.

The three elections#

Election	Frequency	What is elected	Who votes
Legislative	5 years	The 60 deputies	Luxembourg nationals
Municipal	6 years	Municipal councils	Nationals and foreign residents, subject to conditions
European	5 years	Luxembourg's MEPs	Nationals and resident EU citizens, subject to conditions

Trap number one: legislative elections every five years, municipal elections every six. These two durations are systematically offered together. Remember: the longest mandate is the local one.

Legislative elections#

They designate the 60 deputies of the Chamber, spread across four constituencies whose seat numbers depend on population:

Constituency	Seats
South	23
Centre	21
North	9
East	7

The ballot is proportional: seats are allocated according to the votes each list obtains, which explains the durable presence of several parties in the Chamber and the practice of coalition governments.

Two features of the Luxembourg system, often cited:

• panachage: the voter may spread their votes across candidates from different lists;
• cumul: they may give two votes to the same candidate.

Voting is compulsory for registered voters, with exemptions provided for by law.

Legislative elections are reserved to Luxembourg nationals. This is one of the most concrete rights that naturalisation opens.

Municipal elections#

They take place every six years and designate municipal councils, the deliberative bodies of the communes. The college of the mayor and aldermen, the municipal executive, is then formed from the elected council.

The voting system depends on the size of the commune: majority in the smallest, proportional in the larger ones. The population threshold separating the two regimes has changed with successive reforms; check it on an official source if you want to remember a precise figure.

Voting by foreign residents#

This is the most important feature of the chapter, and it directly concerns candidates for nationality.

Foreign residents may take part in municipal elections, subject to conditions and after registering on the electoral roll. The residence requirements have been relaxed through successive reforms: check the current position with your commune or on guichet.public.lu.

The openness is explained by the country's demography: a large share of the resident population does not hold Luxembourg nationality, and excluding them entirely from local democratic life would pose an obvious representation problem.

European elections#

They are held every five years and designate Luxembourg's representatives in the European Parliament.

Luxembourg nationals may vote, as may citizens of other EU member states resident in Luxembourg who have registered on the roll, subject to conditions. An EU citizen can of course only vote in one country for the same election.

This possibility derives from European citizenship, created by the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. An important exam point: European citizenship is added to the nationality of a member state, it does not replace it.

Political parties#

The syllabus mentions political parties among the elements of the system. Remember their function rather than a list of names, which changes: parties structure the electoral offer, field candidates, drive public debate and, once elected, form the majority or the opposition.

The proportional system favours the presence of several parties, which makes coalitions necessary to govern. That is a structural feature of Luxembourg political life.

Who votes for what: the summary table#

	Legislative	Municipal	European
Luxembourg nationals	✔	✔	✔
Resident EU citizens	✘	✔ (conditions)	✔ (conditions)
Resident non-EU nationals	✘	✔ (conditions)	✘

This table illustrates perfectly the syllabus chapter on the limits of fundamental rights linked to nationality: the right to vote is not a single block, it varies with the election and with status.

See: fundamental rights explained.

Revision card#

• Legislative: 5 years, 60 deputies, 4 constituencies, proportional, compulsory voting, reserved to Luxembourg nationals.
• Municipal: 6 years, municipal councils, majority or proportional depending on size, open to foreign residents subject to conditions.
• European: 5 years, European Parliament, open to resident EU citizens subject to conditions.
• Panachage and cumul: two specifics of Luxembourg voting.
• European citizenship: created by Maastricht (1992), added to national citizenship.

Test yourself on the simulator: two of its twenty questions deal with election frequency, exactly as in the real paper.