Brussels, 27/02/2007 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission's Directorate General Translation (DGT) believes that it will have reached its objective of recruiting 56 translators for each of the Romanian and Bulgarian languages that have just become part of the family of official EU languages, by the end of June. The Commission pointed out that in less than three years, the number of official European Union languages had more than doubled. Between 30 April 2004 and 1 January 2007 the number rose from eleven to twenty three. The Commission noted that DG Translation had “admirably risen to this formidable challenge, absorbing more languages in thirty two months than during the previous forty six years”.
On 1 January 2007 a total of 31 Bulgarian translators were working with DGT, all as contract staff. The target is to recruit 25 additional translators by 1 March 2007. The four assistants already in place should be joined by four more successful candidates by the beginning of March. Three further recruits are sought. On 1 January 2007 a total of 40 Romanian translators were working with DGT, all as contract staff. DGT target is to recruit 16 more translators by 1 March. Four assistants have been recruited as contract staff, one more will be in place soon and six more recruits are sought.
Translation into and from Irish started on 1 January 2007. Due to a derogation similar to the one requested by the Maltese authorities, for a transition period of five years only the regulations adopted jointly by the European Parliament and the Council, and correspondence from and to the citizens, will be translated into and from Irish. DGT has established an Irish language translation unit and launched an inter-institutional recruitment competition in 2006. The responsibility of translating the rest of the acquis into Irish lies with the Irish government.
On 1 January 2007 one translator, one assistant and one manager were in place. A second translator started at the beginning of February, while a third should start work soon. It is expected that the final two translators will be in place within the next few months. The competition for Irish-language translators yielded 19 successful candidates on the reserve list.
In December 2005, the Commission concluded an administrative arrangement with the Spanish government on the use of Basque, Catalan and Galician in correspondence with the Commission. The Spanish government has designated a body for translation from these three languages into Spanish and vice versa.
The Directorate-General for Translation (DGT) of the European Commission is by far the largest. With a total staff of 2350 (1750 translators and 600 support staff), DGT meets the Commission's needs for translation and linguistic advice with respect to all types of written communication. In 2006, DGT translated 1,541,518 pages, 36% more than in 1996. Of these, 72% had been drafted in English (45% in 1997), 14% in French (40% in 1997) and less than 3% in German (5% in 1997). Around 20% of the output is contracted out to free-lance translators. This applies, of course, to documents which are not legislative, politically sensitive, confidential or very urgent. In 2007 the cost of translation in the Commission is estimated to be around € 302 million, corresponding to a cost to each citizen of around € 0.63 per year. In 2006 the total cost of translation in all EU institutions was estimated at around € 800 million. (lc)