EU use of Maltese language at risk for lack of translators

A shortage of trained Maltese translators and interpreters has created "serious difficulties" for the European Commission to use Maltese as one of the EU official languages for the initial two years of Malta's accession, reliable sources have told The Times.

Sources close to the EU commission said that there were "excellent" career opportunities for up to 300 Maltese who could be employed in the coming three years as translators, interpreters and lawyer linguists. However, the commission was concerned with the serious lack of suitable applicants.

In May, the commission published a series of calls to fill vacancies for assistant translators, lawyer linguists and interpreters. But replies were few.

"For instance there was a call to recruit 135 assistant translators over the next three years from each of the acceding countries. These people have excellent career prospects especially since there is currently nobody occupying the post of translators in their respective language and therefore they have a guarantee of advancing in their field. Sixty of the 135 assistant translators are required to work directly with the Commission and the rest would be required to work with the other institutions including the council, the European Parliament, the court of auditors and the court of justice.

"It is worrying that for these 135 posts, only 94 applications were received. The recruitment process will start early next year. The commission normally receives hundreds or thousands of applications for such posts and the applicants are selected after a very competitive examination.

"In normal circumstances, candidates sit for a highly competitive examination and the success rate is between five to 10 per cent of the applicants. It is obvious that not all the 94 Maltese applicants are suitable for the job and the experience with the existing official languages so far has shown that only a few of the applicants satisfy the quality requirements."

The sources admitted that such problems were not unique to Malta. "Slovenia and Lithuania have similar problems but it is very clear that Malta's case is the most acute. The problem in Malta is serious because of the size of the country and the lack of professional translators and interpreters."

The commission has received around 2,000 applications from Polish citizens to recruit 135 assistant translators.

"That number of applications is adequate to select the right candidates. "

The sources said that apart from the 135 Maltese translators needed, a substantial part of the commission's work was normally given to freelance translators. "There is a need for up to a further 60 freelance translators in Malta."

The sources said the commission was aware that serious efforts were being made by the University of Malta to find solutions in the medium to long term.

"The commission is also aware that the university has launched courses for interpreters and translators and that this measure could ease the problem in the medium to long term. But in the meantime, especially in the coming two years, the commission and Malta are facing a very tough problem. There is no solution for the short term. It means that there could be a situation where people might be doing a job without having the necessarily qualifications. This could create a problem for the commission as well as for Malta's image. We already had a very serious bad example with the translation of the draft EU constitution document.

"There is also a legal implication attached to this issue because all the text published in the official EU journal is a law. That means that any errors in translations might create inconsistencies in the laws of the community. Every text published in the journal is not considered as a translation to a law but as original, and thus it has the force of law."

Another serious problem exists for the recruitment of lawyers as linguists. The commission received only 27 applications: "Again this is not the norm. Normally we receive many more applications for such attractive posts."

In the case of the interpreters, the commission did not specify how many interpreters it would need. However, it was stated that the commission was seeking to compile a list of 500 people from each country. It is estimated that the commission was aiming to use 100 of the 500 people. However, only 16 Maltese applied.

The sources said the situation was serious. "The Commission is worried about the situation in Malta in this sector. There are excellent career opportunities for Maltese translators, linguists and interpreters but there are not enough qualified staff available. It is clear that in the past there was no training at all for translators and there is no professional body of translators in Malta.

"The mood in the commission is that the politicians have decided to use Maltese as an EU official language but this is becoming a very difficult task for the coming two years. The local authorities should intervene and pump more resources into the university and other relevant authorities to accelerate a remedy of the situation.

"If the situation persists some drastic measures might have to be considered. There are three options which might need to be considered if things come to the worst. The first is not to use Maltese as an EU official language, the second option is not to use Maltese as a fully official language, which means that only the most important documents/meetings will be catered for. The third is to use Maltese as an official language later on, perhaps in a few years after accession."

In the framework of preparing to use Maltese as an official language, the European Commission has recently sent an official to Malta to open a field office for translation.

The head of the translation field office, Joris Goetschalckx is in Malta to assist and advise on helping to match the demand and supply of such staff.

Asked by The Times whether it was true that there was such a serious problem, Mr Goetschalckx would only say: "I can confirm that problems exist and I believe it is going to be very tough in the short term. I am more optimistic on the long term prospects given the efforts initiated by the education community in Malta." He would not elaborate.

Mr Goetschalckx said he had a clear message: "There exist excellent career opportunities for a substantial number of Maltese people. I am also here to assist the Maltese linguistic community to match the demand and supply of these opportunities."

He said his job was to translate into the new languages whatever the commission required apart from legislation; help identify and recruit linguists to work for both the interpreting and translation services; forge closer links with the university's departments which train professional associations; collaborate with the national translation coordination units on compiling and developing terminology databases and translation memories, and to keep the public informed about the EU's language policy.