Inkaliisa Vihonen
Finland has been a member of the European Union (EU) for a little over a decade
already. When Finland first joined the Union, there were remarkable fears on the fate of the
Finnish language. In Finland we also have a relatively long tradition for clearing up the
administrative jargon and making it more accessible to citizens. Many people were concerned
on how these positive efforts were to be continued since the EU language, often called
eurojargon, had gained outright notoriety for its complexity and long-winding
expressions. After ten years as EU members we can already draw some conclusions on the
direction the EU Finnish, and the EU language in general, is heading. These conclusions also
give directions to the future - where should the EU language go to. This is of vital importance
since providing people with comprehensible EU texts helps the EU to gain the trust of its
citizens. In addition, it strengthens the democratic process and increases public involvement
in EU affairs. My presentation is based on the recently published report Vuosikymmen
EU-kieltä ('Decade of Finnish in the EU', in Finnish with English summaries) of the
Research Institute for the Languages of Finland.