Lost in translation? EU to spend an extra £235m on interpreters

The cost of translation and interpretation in Brussels will rise by €235m (£147m) by 2006 to accommodate the nine lang- uages of the 10 countries expected to join the EU by then.

The figures, which were given in a parliamentary answer to Chris Huhne, a Liberal Democrat MEP, illustrate the burden that will be placed on the EU as it tries to avoid becoming a Tower of Babel.

Although internal reforms aim to reduce the burden on translators, officials say that to allow proper democratic control some core work must be accessible in all the languages.

In 1999 all of the EU institutions spent €686m on translation and interpreters for the 11 official languages. This was about €2 per EU citizen per year. The European Commission has 1,300 translators while contracting out a further 20 per cent of its work to freelance staff. It normally uses about 700 interpreters every day, about half of whom are working on a freelance basis.

But the search for qualified staff is getting increasingly difficult because of the combination of new languages. Few interpreters, for example, can translate from Estonian into Portuguese, and the EU institutions are increasingly using "relay systems", where an intermediary language – normally English or French – is used. The new EU countries include Estonia, Poland, Slovenia and Hungary.

Mr Huhne said: "Having proper translation and interpretation is an essential democratic condition. You cannot pass laws in languages that people do not understand. These costs must also be put in context ... [They represent] a fifth of a euro cent for each €100 of EU national income."