Pressure mounts over translations issue

Companies offering translation services to European Union institutions are putting pressure on the Maltese government to address the problem of lack of work being given to them.

Sources close to the translation industry in Malta told The Times that over the past weeks representatives of 13 companies discussed the issue at length with various officials, including Foreign Minister Michael Frendo, the Permanent Representative to the EU, Richard Cachia Caruana and MEPs.

A spokesman for one of the leading translation companies said all the officials they met expressed concern on the matter and pledged to try to solve the "misunderstanding there seems to be with the Commission" as soon as possible.

The translation industry is a direct result of the Maltese language being granted official status by the EU following Malta's accession negotiations. This meant that all EU legislation and other texts such as journals, tenders, information communications and various other documents had be translated into Maltese as from May 1.

Consequently, a number of Maltese translation companies were set up over the past months with the intention of tendering for translation work offered by the EU. However, they suffered a blow last July when the flow of documents forwarded for translation suddenly started drying up. The companies in question had already employed translators, particularly part-timers who started to do the work.

Contacted by The Times, a director of one of the translation companies said the reduction of work could very possibly be attributed to a derogation agreed to between the Commission and the Maltese government. He said the derogation was signed in March this year and entered into force on May 1. Their understanding of the derogation, when first seen, was that this would permit the Commission not to translate Acts (laws) into Maltese, Acts being legal documents that are normally translated in-house by EU staff.

He said the Maltese translation companies were not concerned at all with this derogation as they assumed that their work would not be affected. However it seems they got the wrong impression. In fact, the company director said that "now it is resulting that the EU has given a wider interpretation to the derogation and has extended it to almost all documents". In reality, he added, this meant that no documents are now being sent to Malta for translation.

In order to try to unblock this impasse, Maltese translation companies have over the past weeks got together to discuss the situation. It is believed that in the coming weeks, meetings will be held between the government and EU officials in order to further explain the issue and try to come out with solutions. At the same time, the translation companies will be meeting again at the end of this week in order to be updated on the latest developments.

Sources close to the EU told The Times the derogation was required because of the lack of Maltese translators employed directly by the EU as it was impossible to translate the legal documents without the necessary complement. They said the derogation is valid for three years in order to give the necessary time to the EU to find and employ full-time Maltese translators.

It is estimated that the EU will need 135 full-time Maltese translators. Following a call late last year, only eight Maltese translators passed the formal examination.