I wonder how many people criticizing it even planned on trying this completely-free course.
I think we really need to work on pulling the plug on this fetishization of contrarianism as a community.
Its Finnish EU PRESIDENCY, which means it's paid by the EU budget.
Each EU country holds the rotating EU presidency for six months, which means they chair interministerial meetings, formally negotiate and propose compromise legal texts, etc. In this role the presidency receives a budget for promotional events, communication efforts, etc. The Finnish presidency decided to use part of the budget for this translation effort.
This seems to fit various EU goals well, eg to upskill the population, promote digital competences and encourage use of all 24 EU languages. Think of just the added value of having common terminology and definitions.
Quote from the press release: The cost of the initiative, a total of 1 679 000 euros, will be funded from the budget of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment of Finland.
What's news here is the translation job to translate it to multiple European languages. It takes an additional 1,7 million € and is funded solely by the Ministry of Employment and the Economy of Finland.
I failed to find any claims of EU funding any part of the original development or this translation job. The Finnish Ministry of Employment calls this course a gift from Finland to the European Union. What's your source on this being EU funded?