Latin Union
Founded on
1954 by the Constituent Agreement of
Madrid, the
Latin Union (
Spanish:
Unión Latina;
French:
Union Latine;
Italian:
Unione Latina;
Portuguese:
União Latina;
Romanian:
Uniunea Latină) exists as an institution since
1983. In the seventeen years of functional existence, the number of
States that became members by means of the ratification of the Constituent Agreement of Madrid or by adhesion increased from 12 to 35, at the moment covering countries in all parts of the world. In agreement with the established interpretative recommendations in 1992, an applicant country for membership must satisfies one or several to the following criteria:
linguistic criteria (official language
derived from Latin; Latin-derived language used in
education; Latin-derived language in
mass media or in the daily life); linguistic-cultural criteria (existence of a significant literature in Latin-derived language;
press and
publication in Latin-derived language;
television with a strong proportion of the programming in Latin-derived language;
radio widely spread in Latin language); cultural criteria (direct or indirect inheritance of the patrimony of Old
Rome, to which the States show their fidelity and that they perpetuate mainly through the education of the
Latin, the
cultural education of Latin-derived foreign languages, interchanges with other Latin countries, the organization of the
society, particularly in the
legal plane, the respect, actually, of the fundamental
liberties, the general principles of
human rights and
democracy, the tolerance and the freedom of
religion).
Member States
The Latin Union is present in four continents including at the moment
The official languages of the Latin Union are: Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese and Romanian. The four first are used as working languages. All the texts of general diffusion are translated in these four languages and some also in
See also
External link