Government to tackle translation issue with EU Commission

The government has written to the European Commission about complaints being raised by private Maltese translation companies and will be following up the issue in meetings in Brussels.

Maltese companies tendering for EU document translation jobs have complained that the number of documents being sent to Malta by the Commission has diminished considerably since last July.

Malta's Permanent Representative to the EU, Richard Cachia Caruana, told The Times when contacted that the government was "fully aware of the complaints being raised and is already taking all necessary measures to clarify the situation with Commission officials".

"As soon as we came across this issue, a few weeks ago, the Maltese Permanent Representation sought clarifications and even wrote officially to the Commission." He said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry for Home Affairs were also following the issue closely.

The companies are complaining that the reduction of work could possibly be attributed to a derogation agreed to between the Council and the Maltese government last March. According to EU rules, legal documents cannot come into force before they are enacted into all the official EU languages. As this is not physically possible at the moment, the derogation was necessary to solve the legal obstacle.

However, Mr Cachia Caruana said "the derogation should not affect in any way the work issued by the EU and that is precisely why the government is trying to clarify the matter".

He explained that the temporary derogation agreed between Malta and the Council came about because there was no way the Council was able to draw up all the legislative documents that would be required in the Maltese language. This was because the EU has not found enough Maltese translators to employ.

Mr Cachia Caruana insisted this was only a temporary measure until an adequate number of Maltese translators within the EU services is secured.

He said that in the meantime the government has initiated discussions with the Commission in order to try to have the necessary Maltese staff in place in the shortest time possible. The Commission was also offered the possibility of using the services of the Maltese drafting and translation unit although this did not fall within the Maltese government's remit, he explained. At the same time, the government was also insisting on the use of the private sector for the translations needed.

However, according to sources close to the Commission, the Maltese government's offer cannot be accepted by the EU as the rules lay down that such translations should be done in-house.

Mr Cachia Caruana said the government was also asking the Commission to clarify other issues raised by the Maltese companies, such as the publication of a list of Maltese bidders.

The sources close to the Commission told The Times that at the moment the Commission only has 20 Maltese assistant translators out of the necessary 135. Other translators are employed with other EU institutions. However even here, the number of translators is much lower than that required.

Commission sources said the situation is being dealt with, so much so that only last week a delegation from the Commission's directorate general for translation had talks in Malta about the subject. Discussions were held with government and university officials in order to formulate a new Maltese terminology database and to initiate new courses to train translators even through distance learning.

The sources told The Times the Commission will be issuing another call for Maltese translators in the new year.