All EU laws to be in Maltese

All EU laws enacted by the European Council and the European Parliament will start being published in Maltese as from next May.

Because of a dearth of translators when Malta joined the EU two-and-a-half years ago, not all legal texts are being produced in Maltese, unlike the obligation that exists for the other official languages of the Union.

The EU's Committee of Permanent Representatives has decided that since the number of translators has now risen considerably, this derogation - which could have been extended by another year - may be lifted.

The decision will be given the official ministerial green light by the 25 member states today.

Malta's Permanent Representative to the EU, Ambassador Richard Cachia Caruana, told The Times that he was pleased the EU institutions have recruited the necessary personnel and that a "state of normality" will be reached in this area by May 1, 2007.

"Given the difficulties the Commission had faced in recruiting the required number of Maltese translators in the run-up to Malta's accession in 2004, we had agreed to put in place this derogation. It was always our intention - and that of the Commission - to see that the derogation would not be required for an extra year. I am pleased that this has been done and that the derogation will end in 2007.

The derogation meant that the obligation to publish in Maltese was limited to the translation of Acts enacted through the co-decision process, a legislative process involving joint decisions by the European Parliament and the Council.

Since Malta's accession, the number of Maltese translators working with the EU's translation services in Luxembourg has risen from only eight in May 2004 to about 60 last July. More are on the way as the EU is currently recruiting a number of translators who passed the recruitment exam held a few months ago.

A group of translators have also been recruited on a temporary basis and another call for temporary translators has just been issued.

Malta has also started to prepare better for the new opportunities offered by the EU in the language sector with specific courses in translation and interpretation skills introduced at the University of Malta.

Commission sources told The Times that lifting the derogation could also mean the outsourcing of more translation work to private local and foreign companies.

"Having to translate thousands more pages into Maltese will mean a much bigger workload. If we can't do this with our own resources we will obviously have to outsource more of our work. However, priority will still be given to our in-house translation services."