Luxembourg (abbr. LUX) is one of the funding members of the European Union, with a curious inverse relationship between its size and the cost of housing. Its considerable community of eurocratsEurocratThe term Eurocrat (from the combination of ”European” and ”bureaucrat”) broadly indicates any official working for the European Union; it may have both a negative and a positive connotation, depending on who is speaking is haunted by the constant feeling of being ignored by their colleagues in BrusselsBrusselsBrussels (abbr. BRU, French: Bruxelles; Dutch: Brussel), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (French: Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; Dutch: Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest), is a region of Belgium comprising 19. Or the rest of the world.

Nobody knows it, but Luxembourg hosts several European institutions, among which the European Investment Bank (EIB), the European Investment Fund (EIF), the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF). Some say only money wants to live there.

To be fair, the Grand Duchy tried everything to make Luxembourg an attractive place to work in, except paying decent salaries. This is true also for the EU: what in BRU feels like a generous wage is slightly less generous in LUX, because the costs of living are higher (on the other hand there are fewer things to do, so one is forced to save anyway). So far there has been no plan to offer extra money to officials dislocated in Luxembourg and this is often a critical argument for many staff unions.