Brussels, 24/08/2005 (Agence Europe) - On 20 July, the European Commission adopted a communication by Commissioner Jan Figel, who is responsible for Education and Culture, summing up the situation with the translation strategy since nine new official languages were introduced with the enlargement of the EU to 10 new Member States, on 1 May 2004. The document shows that the recruitment strategy must be "actively" pursued, in order to achieve the objective of 540 permanent internal translators for the nine new languages, that the objective in terms of work pace have proved too ambitious and that the lack of temporary staff and support personnel for the translation units of the new languages "has become a major problem".
According to the communication of May 2004 laying down a strategy to achieve a balance between supply and demand of translation (see EUROPE 8713), the objective was to recruit 451 translators for the nine new languages of the EU, and 546 by July 2006. As of 1 January 2005, the number of translators in their posts for the new languages totalled 296. After further recruitment, the Commission had 429 translators as of 1 June 2005. The objective of 451 translators should be achieved by September 2005, which spells "a considerable delay" compared to the objectives set in May 2004. "This situation has had an impact on the gap between supply and demand in the first months of 2005", the Commission notes.
One consequence of the delays in recruitment is that the objectives set in terms of working pace for the new recruits will be impossible to achieve (an increase from 4.5 pages translated per translator per day to 5.5 pages in 2005 and six pages in 2006). The Commission suggests that the working pace of 4.5 pages per day should be stuck to for the time being and that everything possible should be done "to increase this pace thereafter".
The communication also explains that lessons should be learnt from this, ahead of the forthcoming introduction of further new official languages. Irish has become the 21st official language of the EU, in virtue of the decision by the Council of 14 June, and the result of this is that the possible number of language combinations will be brought to 420. A minimum of 13 posts will be needed to translate text into Irish and the Irish government has undertaken to provide the qualified staff required. Furthermore, the necessary resources must be available before 2007 for Romanian and Bulgarian.
On the lessons to be learnt from the management of demand, the Commission is aware that its strategy in terms of translation has had an indirect effect on the non-procedural languages of the EU of 15, such as Italian, Spanish and Portuguese (the procedural languages are English, French and German). The Commission has therefore carried out an major internal reshuffle of vacant posts. For the period 2004-2006, the Commission has provided for 193 posts to be redeployed. Other measures, such as the secondment of translators from the EU of 15 into other Directorates General, will be taken in order to "support the policy of multilingualism" to be presented in the autumn, in a new Commission communication. Commissioner Figel will keep the College of Commissioners regularly informed on the state of play with the translation strategy.