Finnish EU presidency to snub German language: report

Finland, which takes over the European Union presidency in July, will publish EU communiques in English and French but not in German, the most widely spoken language in the bloc with some 90 million speakers, media reported on Friday.

Finland will open two official EU presidency websites at the end of May, one in English (www.eu2006.fi) and one in French (www.ue2006.fi).

Press releases and the main working documents will only be published in the two languages, but other information will be available in the other tongues of the EU, including German.

"Since we are using neither Finnish nor Swedish (Finland's two official languages), we assumed that no one could complain," a spokesman for the Finnish embassy in Brussels, Mikko Norros, told Swedish-language Finnish daily Hufvudstadsbladet.

According to the newspaper, a group that defends the German language in the EU has taken the matter to EU ombudsman P.Nikiforos Diamandouros. He has supported the group's claim that German be included and is expected to ask the Council of Europe to look into the issue.