diff --git a/po/Makevars.in b/po/Makevars.in
index f332a1c2d7..f3bfe98d2c 100644
--- a/po/Makevars.in
+++ b/po/Makevars.in
@@ -12,8 +12,8 @@ XGETTEXT_FALLBACK := $(XGETTEXT)
 
 # Override xgettext with a LuaJIT aware variant (which calls
 # into plain xgettext if it needs to, and handles Lua on its own)
-XGETTEXT = XGETTEXT=$(XGETTEXT_FALLBACK) EFL_RUN_IN_TREE=1 \
-	$(top_builddir)/src/bin/elua/elua :xgettext
+XGETTEXT = ELUA=@elua_bin@ ELUA_INTREE=$(top_builddir)/src/bin/elua/elua \
+	XGETTEXT=$(XGETTEXT_FALLBACK) ./xgettext_wrapper.sh
 
 # These options get passed to xgettext.
 XGETTEXT_OPTIONS = --keyword=_ --keyword=N_ --from-code=UTF-8 --foreign-user
diff --git a/po/xgettext_wrapper.sh b/po/xgettext_wrapper.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000000..5aee06f4a9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/po/xgettext_wrapper.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+
+ELUA_BIN="$ELUA"
+
+if [ ! "$ELUA_BIN" ]; then
+    ELUA_BIN="$ELUA_INTREE"
+    export EFL_RUN_IN_TREE=1
+fi
+
+$ELUA_BIN :xgettext "$@"
+
+exit $?
\ No newline at end of file