European Commission denies reducing translation work

The European Commission has denied reducing the number of its requests for the translation of documents into Maltese, as recently claimed by Maltese translation companies.

The Commission also unveiled a list of 15 companies it has directly contracted to carry out translations to and from the Maltese language.

The publication of the list follows queries submitted by The Times about complaints by Maltese private translation companies over lack of work.

Karl Ahrend, the acting head of unit in the Directorate General for Translation in the European Commission, told The Times that the issue had been taken up by Malta's Permanent Representative to the EU and was being dealt with.

According to the list, 15 companies have been contracted by the Commission to translate EU documents from or to Maltese. Four companies have been contracted to translate from German to Maltese, 15 companies are conducting translations from English to Maltese while 10 companies also translate from French texts.

Not all the companies contracted to do this work are Maltese. In fact, out of the 16 companies listed recently in the official journal of the EU, there is one Belgian company based in Brussels, one based in Athens and another in Luxemburg.

Mr Ahrend also said that the derogation agreed to between the Council and the Maltese government last March had nothing to do with the alleged lack of work raised by the Maltese companies.

"At the request of the Maltese authorities, the Council decided on May 1 to adopt a regulation on temporary derogation measures relating to the drafting in Maltese of the acts of the institutions of the European Union. According to this regulation, for the period of three years beginning on May 1 the institutions of the European Union shall not be bound by the obligation to draft all acts in Maltese and to publish them in that language in the Official Journal of the European Union."

Mr Ahrend also said the regulation provides that the Council will review this derogation not later than 30 months after its adoption. "This is a partial derogation, as it does not apply to regulations adopted jointly by the European Parliament and the Council."

A few days ago the Maltese Permanent Representative to the EU, Richard Cachia Caruana, also shed doubts on the allegation made by the Maltese translation companies. He told The Times that the derogation should not have affected any work usually farmed out by the EU to private companies.

Mr Ahrend explained that "the reason why the Maltese authorities requested such a derogation is the very limited translation capacity". He added that "moreover, the fact that English is another official language of Malta ensures that the Maltese citizens have the access to European legislation and other information they are entitled to".

Commission sources last week told The Times that one of the reasons that might be contributing to the present situation is the lack of Maltese translators within the Commission services. The sources said that although these do not work directly on the farmed-out translations, they still have to revise all the texts translated by the Maltese private companies.

At present the Commission employs only 20 Maltese translators. In all, 135 are necessary for every official language.