Future enlargement of the European Union is destined to accentuate the problems of its translation services. Some lessons for likely scenarios can be gleaned from the addition of Finnish to the list of official languages in 1995, especially with respect to juridical syntax, new terminology, the status of a relatively ‘opaque’ language, and the social factors influencing acceptance of change. These issues are linked to the special theoretical problems ensuing from translational equivalence as an EU ‘legal fiction’ and the subsequent non-directionality of translated texts. Official equality also hides extreme imbalances in language use, perhaps promising more than limited budgets may be able to deliver. It is suggested that, in preparation for such problems, restricted training programmes should be developed, the non-bureaucratic translation market should not be abandoned, and a series of critical questions should be asked of EU experts.