The enlargement of the European Union from 15 to 25 member-states with nine new languages has created a kind of linguistic big bang in Brussels, with new headaches for intepreters.
"Integrating nine new official languages at one go when the newcomers joined last May was an unprecedented situation for the Commission," said a member of the EU's executive organ here.
Previously the EU had 11 languages shared between 15 members. Now it has 20 shared by 25.
Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish have now been joined by Czech, Estonian, Hungarian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Slovak and Slovene.
The European Commission says it is more or less satisfied with the current state of affairs after the 10 joined -- the 10th being Cyprus which shares a language with Greece.
But there were limits to the available capacity, admitted Manuel Barata, of the Commission's translation directorate.
One of the biggest headaches has been the Maltese language. All the candidates for jobs as intepreters failed in November 2003, so all EU meetings -- the council of ministers, European Commissioners, press conferences -- have to be covered by outside interpreters.
The situation is about to be resolved because teachers are currently completing a course in London and will then go to Malta to train up future Maltese interpreters.
The possibility of the Turkish and Greek parts of the island of Cyprus being reunited at some future point means that the Turkish language would come into the equation and create similar new problems.
The breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) was left out of the enlarged European Union when the rest of Cyprus joined last May.
The TRNC is recognized as a sovereign country only by Turkey. Only the Greek Cypriot republic is internationally recognized.
A specific protocol on Cyprus is attached to the Accession Treaty which foresees that in the absence of a settlement, the application of EU regulations should be suspended to the northern part of the island until the EU decides otherwise, meaning that the door is open for the integration of the Turkish Cypriots into the EU.
The absence of an adequate training centre in Nicosia would mean recruiting Turkish intepreters with whom Brussels has been used to working for years, said Ian Andersen of the Commission's directorate-general for interpretation.
These problems are far from new. When Portugal joined in 1986, intepretation was initially provided largely by Brazilians, he recalled.
The Commission says 80 interpreters are required on a daily basis for each new language joining the EU's repertoire, which means in fact up to 120 for real needs, Andersen said.
The Maltese currently have only eight interpeters, while another newcomer, Hungary, has 88 followed by the Poles with 86.
In addition to parallel intepretation, there is also the massive task of written translation of the mountain of official papers to be transcribed into the EU's 20 languages.
Each time a new country joins the EU, the bloc's existing laws have to be translated into the language of the country.
The translation department has a budget to engage 90 full-time staff for each of the nine new languages.
By this January 1 however, only 296 were in place instead of the full expected complement of 810. The Commission hopes to raise the figure to 451 in the first half of this year.
The situation varies less from country to country in written translation work, although the Maltese still lag behind with only 22 translators compared to between 33 and 38 for the eight other new languages.
And the theme of languages will bulk ever larger with the future enlargement of the EU.
The Commission is already training up Romanian and Bulgarian instructor- interpreters, who will then themselves train future interpreters for the day when Romania and Bulgaria join in 2007, as planned.
Similar cooperation has begun with the former Yugoslav republic of Croatia, which hopes to join in 2008.
By: N. Peter Kramer
