Brussels, 01/03/2007 (Agence Europe) - The conclusions adopted on Tuesday 27 February welcomed the special report from the European Court of Auditors on translation expenditure in the three institutions, which amounted to €511 million in 2005, at a time when the number of EU official and working languages rose to 21 (EUROPE 9265). The Council, however, advocates greater inter-institutional cooperation in all institutions to help improve procedures and reduce translation costs. The institutions are being urged to improve the system of workload balancing in order to make better use of spare capacity and to avoid unnecessary outsourcing. Member states note, according to the Court, that €11 million in freelance translation costs could have been saved by the Commission and by the Parliament if non-urgent documents had been given to other institutions to translate.
In its conclusions, the Council underlines that translations must be “carried out in time and with adequate quality” but that it is necessary to keep costs “under control” and have adequate procedures for prioritising essential translations, which “implies effective management of translation resources”. Nevertheless, it regrets that in some cases, politically important information that needs translating has been included in non-translated annexes of documents.
The Council notes with “satisfaction” that the Court of Auditors stated that the institutions have generally met translation needs in the EU15 languages with the required quality, notably by drawing on freelance translators. But it regrets that these institutions have “faced structural difficulties in providing a sufficient volume and acceptable quality in the new EU10 languages”. The Council notes that with the exception of the Commission (for 2002), the institutions did not calculate the total cost of translations and average cost of each page translated. It calls on the institutions to address this issue and send the relevant information on to the budgetary authority.
The Ecofin Council welcomes the fact that the institutions succeeded in “containing” the increased volume in translations, and that the Commission and the Council took measures to this end. Nonetheless, it is concerned that EU translation services production is well below that of the private sector and that the productivity of the Council is “systematically lower” than that of the Commission and Parliament. The Council takes note of the long term action plan of the Council General Secretariat for increasing its productivity and reducing the number of “full-time equivalents” in the EU15 language units, with a view to reaching comparable figures for all EU27 language units by 2015 at the latest.
The Council regrets that the institutions have not been able to recruit a sufficient number of translators in the EU10 languages, and recommends that measures are taken for rectifying this situation (for raising awareness about the Community's translation activities and promoting interest for this field in the ten new member states and candidate countries). Similar measures are required in Bulgaria and Romania.
The Council regrets that the institutions do not have users' satisfaction surveys or procedures for handling complaints, or established consistent and clear procedures for translation requests. The conclusions therefore urged the institutions to: carry out regular random quality checks in each language section; conduct users' satisfaction surveys; follow up deadlines; take measures to contain the volume of translations (including the control of the size of the documents) and improve the efficiency of the translation process (intensifying use of IT tools, reduction of secretarial support, working methods based on best practices and teleworking). (lc)