Brussels, 20/02/2009 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission faces a shortage of translators for a number of language combinations. The situation is particularly worrying in the English language department because many officials who joined the Commission in the Seventies following the accession of the United Kingdom and Ireland are now approaching retirement age. The Commission has therefore decided to launch a campaign centred on the career opportunities it has to offer to skilled translators.
The results of the last two inter-institutional competitions for English-language translators, organised by the European Personnel Selection Office (EPSO) in 2005 and 2007, were not satisfactory: the target figures for successful candidates - i.e. 40 (2005) and 70 (2007) names on the reserve lists - were not reached; instead, only 16 and 24 successful candidates respectively were available for recruitment to the four EU institutions involved.
DG Translation is the largest service of the European Commission. With a total staff of approximately 2,500, including translators and non-translating staff, it caters for the Commission's needs for translation and linguistic advice in respect of all types of written communication. The annual cost of translation in the Commission is estimated to be some €300 million a year. The English language department currently employs 111 translators. Other services within DG Translation employ English-language linguists for editing documents and translating web pages. In 2008, the output of DG Translation was 1.8 million translated pages. 72 % were translated from English, 12 % from French, 3 % from German and 13 % from other languages. The English language department accounted for 10.5 % of total output. Around 26 % of the Commission's translation is contracted out to freelance translators. The English language department outsourced 55 % of its work in 2008, thus accounting for 22 % of DG Translation's outsourced work.
Since 2004, the Commission has faced a chronic shortage of translators for some of the newly-added languages. Recruiting translators for Slovenian and Maltese has proved particularly difficult. (L.C./transl.rt)