I've given up. I've tried everything i can think of. I have examined the preprocessor output with MOC_RUN defined and without. In qtcore qnamespace.h compiles fine as a namespace with a metaobject. But i cant reproduce it in my project. So i, as a second choise, used Q_GADGET in my class. This at least enables me to use QMetaEnum with an object which does not inherit from QObject. It would have been cooler with a namespace. But i will supress my compulsions, and go on with my life