Brussels, 14/01/2005 (Agence Europe) - The arrival of nine new languages with the accession of ten new Member States to the EU on 1 May has increased the budget for administrative expenditure of translation and interpreting to almost a billion EUR a year. The annual cost of translating official documents by all institutions jumped 60% after this latest wave of enlargement, to 807 million EUR a year (320 million EUR for the Commission's services), representing 0.8% of the total budget of the EU and 13% of administrative expenditure. 2,000 people work in the Commission's translation service. At the end of last year, the Commission recruited 296 translators from the new Member States (around thirty per language) and the objective is to reach a figure of 451 in the next six months. Interpreting costs may reach 238 million EUR a year from 2007 to 2013. The institutions as a whole need on average an extra 80 interpreters per language and per day, half of these for the Commission. DG Interpretation employs 500 staff interpreters, and 2,700 freelances on top. The Commission has engaged 499 new interpreters in the new EU languages (from 8 Maltese to 88 Hungarians), most of these on a freelance basis.