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The hunt for interpreters, translators still ongoing |
BRUSSELS: Two years after the European Union’s “big bang” expansion to the east, the search is still on to find interpreters and translators specialising in the bloc’s new official languages.
Recruiting Bulgarian and Romanian interpreters – the two countries which are expected to join the EU in January 2007 – is proving to be even more of a bureaucratic headache.
The hunt for interpreters and translators who are fluent in central and eastern European languages is urgent given the EU institutions’ multinational character.
Although a great deal of administrative work is conducted in English, French and German, the bloc now boasts 20 official languages which are used at all high-level meetings.
Highly-skilled interpreters who know the ins and outs of complex EU politics are therefore the backbone of the 25-nation bloc.
The bloc’s institutions, however, need to recruit about 200 interpreters who can speak the “new” EU languages, including Polish, Czech and Hungarian. Another 100 translators are also required.
The Commission – the EU’s executive arm – has recently chided the newcomers for not doing enough to train “highly qualified conference interpreters”.
For instance, at the moment, interpretation into Latvian and Lithuanian can be provided only half of the time, the Commission said.
In contrast, the Commission has recruited 110 Polish interpreters, 86 Hungarians and 66 Czechs.
Malta poses a particular challenge, since recruitment competitions have so far yielded no successful candidate and there are only 11 freelance interpreters who are fluent in the language.
The commission’s interpretation services employ a total of 500 people, with an additional 2,700 freelance interpreters being asked to chip in. The services provide interpreters for up to 60 meetings every day.
The European Parliament and the Court of Justice have their own separate interpretation service.
Following the latest enlargement round, language services costs in the 25-nation bloc have shot up.
With nine new official EU languages, translation costs have spiralled from 541mn euros in 2003 to around 800mn euros this year. In 2005, some 176mn euros were spent on interpretation. – DPA |
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