Sniffy classicists, who have always looked down at the EU as a pale imitation of their beloved Roman Empire, will be delighted. Having pinched the Romans' idea of a single currency, the EU has now decided to embrace Latin.
Finland, which is running the EU for the next six months, is to publish weekly news bulletins in Latin on its special EU presidency Web site.
Leaders of the Unio Europaea, who have had a wretched year grappling with the Constitutio Europaea, will be reaching for their dictionaries at their next shindig in Bruxellae.
The EU's notorious jargon, which baffles all but the saddest Brussels anoraks, turns into poetry when translated into Latin. The miserable Common Agricultural Policy becomes the majestic ratio communis agros colendi, which literally means "common scheme for cultivating the fields."
Classicists can catch up with the news in Latin every Wednesday thanks to two energetic Finnish Latin academics.
Tuomo Pekkanen and Reijo Pitkaranta already have a cult following among Finnish classicists who tune in every Sunday night to Nuntii Latini, a five-minute Latin news bulletin broadcast on YLE, Finland's public broadcaster.
Pitkaranta said: "Latin is not dead: it is still very much in use in different forms across the world today. Italians, French and Spaniards all speak a new form of Latin. I hope that EU documents are soon translated into Latin which is such a clear language."
Mia Lahti, the editor of the Finnish presidency's Web site, said: "Using Latin is a way of paying tribute to European civilization and it serves to remind people of European society's roots, stretching back to ancient times."
Classicists hailed the initiative by Finland which is the only country, along with the Vatican, to broadcast news in Latin even though the Roman empire never reached Scandinavia.
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