A new European school is to be built in Shifflange
Kübra Arslaner, Unsplash
On 16 July 2025, the Minister of Education, Claude Meisch, presented a project to build a new European public school in the commune of Schifflange, in the southern part of Luxembourg. This initiative is a response to the surge in demand for European schools, especially in the canton of Esch-sur-Alzette, where the number of applications is many times greater than the number of places available.
The school will be the seventh in a network of European schools offering education in a multilingual and international model. It is scheduled to open in 2028, when the first students will be able to start classes in temporary modular pavilions. The new permanent building will open in 2030.
For the 2025/2026 school year alone, EIDE received 1,200 new applications, of which only 300 were successful. The shortage is particularly acute at the secondary level: in Differdange, only 104 pupils were accepted out of 385 applicants, in Esch-sur-Alzette, 12 out of 62. In preparatory and integration classes, 19 out of 51 pupils were admitted. In primary education, the situation is no better: 32 out of 199 applications for kindergarten and 57 out of 289 applications for primary classes were met.
"Equal chances should not be bogged down by a lack of educational offerings. With the new lycée in Schifflange, we are giving children a real perspective," emphasised Meisch.
The future campus will accommodate up to 980 students and will include:
- 68 classrooms;
- three gyms and a swimming pool;
- a dining room with its own kitchen;
- Jugendtreff Youth Centre;
- integration, training and orientation classes.
The school will implement a full European secondary education from S1 to S7. This is a model adapted to Luxembourg's linguistic and cultural heterogeneity: two thirds of students do not speak Luxembourgish at home.
Financing and synergies
The project will cost €146 million, of which €100 million will be spent on the construction of the school itself. The municipality of Schifflange will finance the project, but the state will fully reimburse its costs for the school part and cover 70 per cent of the cost of the public infrastructure. The state's total contribution is €129.2 million.
The school will be part of a new educational campus, which will also include a primary school and nursery. This integration of infrastructure will save resources and optimise the use of buildings and spaces.
Since the opening of the first European public school in 2016, their network has expanded to six, with 5,771 pupils today. The new school in Schifflange will be an important step towards creating a more accessible, inclusive and multilingual education system in one of the country's most dynamic regions.
