Gaps still exist in Maltese interpretation service

Despite almost five years of EU membership, Maltese interpretation is still not always readily available during EU meetings.

Although the situation has improved since the first years of accession, the provision of a steady Maltese language interpretation service is still not possible and the service continues to have the worst record of the 23 official languages at the EU.

The main problem is lack of qualified Maltese interpreters, even though a freelance Maltese interpreter can earn more than €300 a day for spending a few hours in a Maltese interpretation booth.

According to statistics issued by the Commission for 2008, the directorate responsible for interpretation services could only offer the Maltese language service in 71.3 per cent of requests.

In all, there were 382 requests for the service during meetings of the European Council, the Committee of the Regions and the European Economic and Social Committee. Meetings of the European Parliament and the European courts are not included in the figure.

New entrant Romania has a similar record, with the directorate last year only being able to provide interpretation in 73 per cent of requests. However, these requests were based on a much higher demand, a total of 831 meeting days.

Over the years, the Maltese authorities have taken a number of measures to improve the situation. Maltese would-be interpreters were sent on specialised courses in the UK and the University of Malta has even started its own courses. Moreover, some of the serving interpreters employed by the Commission are also learning the Maltese language to be able to offer the services.

However, it takes time to "produce" a good interpreter, according to a Commission official, and, though the situation is improving and should get better in a few years' time it is still early to predict how many Maltese interpreters will be available in the coming years.

According to the Commission's estimates there is a need for at least a threefold increase in the pool of about 20 Maltese interpreters, most of them working on a freelance basis.

Although Maltese, the smallest of the EU's official languages, is suffering, it is not the only one. Apart from similar problems faced by other "small" languages, such as Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian, the Commission is getting even more worried about its main language - English.

According to the Interpretation Directorate, quick action has to be taken to find new English language interpreters to avoid a crisis. If there are no new English language interpreters, the EU Institutions will lose at least one third of their pool by 2015 due to retirement and about half in 10 years.

Large numbers of native-speaker English linguists were recruited from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s after the United Kingdom's and Ireland's accession to what was then the EC in 1973.

In order to avert this crisis, which can be critical for the EU as no meeting can be held without English interpretation facilities, the Commission started a drive in the UK and other English-speaking member states to lure students towards an interpretation career.

According to the Commission, when taking into account the trend in demand and potential future, larger conference centres, the EU will need about 300 English native speaker conference interpreters within the next 10 years.