Strengthening national identity

Last Sunday I described the simple but very successful social activity that brought together the small but growing Maltese community in Luxembourg, to mark the 40th anniversary of Malta's independence.

I have no hesitation in repeating that EU membership is helping to foster a stronger sense of national identity among us Maltese. Such a development is in glaring contrast to the fears expressed by some in the days preceding the EU referendum last year.

One aspect of our national identity that has received a particular boost from membership is the use of the Maltese language. This is a positive development that, perhaps even the most convinced proponents of EU membership had not fully anticipated.

EU membership has established Maltese as one of the official languages of the Union, on a par with the other official languages. Of course, for practical reasons which are very easy to understand, all institutions adopt a few working languages as a way of simplifying their daily business. In most cases these are English, French and German.

Officials of the various institutions often use one of these languages to write the first draft of documents, and then the translation services have to do the rest. In some instances, a document might initially have parts in, say, English and other parts in French, depending on the language that particular officials feel most comfortable working with. This is especially the case when documents have to be combined from the contributions of several people, working to a severe time constraint.

However, while English, French and German are the most common languages used, so that most legislation is initially drafted in one of these languages, eventual translations, once they are published, enjoy the same primacy as the original text. In other words, there is no one language which prevails over another; not even that language in which the legislation was originally drafted.

In Malta we are used to the situation where legislation is published in both Maltese and English but where one of the versions, generally the Maltese one, prevails. The exception is in the case of financial legislation where it was judged that international investors would find greater certainty if the English version prevails in case of questions of interpretation by the courts. Bipartisan agreement was reached on this issue so as to provide the best possible environment for international investors.

However, within the EU, all the translations into any one of the official languages of the Union are considered to be originals and, from a legal perspective, they carry an identical weight. Which is one of the reasons why the translation process assumes particular relevance and why it attracts so much attention as well as resources.

This has created, practically overnight, a demand for Maltese translators and opened a new avenue for professional development. In this initial phase, most of the persons selected to fill these posts appear to have a legal background. This is an actual requirement within the Court of Justice where its deliberations must not only be translated correctly from a linguistic point of view but must also conform to the particular legal parameters of each individual country. It is not a requirement in the other institutions but it is evident, from the prevalence of lawyers among the Maltese translators, that the legal profession currently provides one of the most relevant practical backgrounds for prospective translators.

It is probably correct to say that most of this first crop of Maltese translators had not anticipated becoming engaged in this field of occupation. For most of them becoming translators was not their goal but a means to an end, namely working within one of the EU institutions. However for most of them, at least judging by the feedback that I have, their new line of activity has turned out to be much more interesting and rewarding than they had imagined. It is certainly a demanding task and a challenging one indeed.

At the moment, the greatest difficulty is represented by the lack of a sufficiently developed and universally accepted glossary of Maltese terminology upon which to base one's translation work and around which to develop new terms. This last aspect must be seen as an ongoing task within any language and needs to be carried out in a structured and coherent manner. Not haphazardly and not piecemeal and not subject to individual whims.

As additional Maltese translators are recruited within the individual EU institutions and agencies, one hopes that, in the near future, mechanisms will be established that will help to foster as close a collaboration as possible among them, from which the Maltese language, generally speaking, is bound to benefit.

The same people who had voiced their concern about Malta's national identity had also claimed that membership would detract from Malta's sovereignty. However, even on this point, I think that time is already showing us otherwise.

Of course, being a member in an organisation does automatically imply that one is accepting that decisions on certain aspects will be taken jointly with others. But this is never a one-way traffic and, in the same manner that one has to adapt one's particular views in the light of the position taken by the other members, it is also the case that one's own views will influence those of the others. And especially, from a practical point of view and from the perspective of a small country, membership in an organisation provides a 'platform' from where to voice one's views in a manner which would not otherwise have been possible.

This is true not only of the EU but of all organisations including, for example, the United Nations. There must have been times when the UN adopted a particular stand which might not have been exactly in line with Malta's viewpoint. However nobody interpreted this as a loss of sovereignty but merely as an integral aspect of being part of a wider entity.

As has often been discussed, the EU is like a single container for its over 400 million citizens but it is still made up of an amalgam of countries which retain their individual sovereignty. The difficult task is how to strengthen the whole but without renouncing the individual parts. This is the complex task of the various institutions of the EU that must together provide the necessary direction. The formula that has been adopted is not a simple one but neither is the objective. It is a formula that has borne positive results over the years as was amply manifest in last May's enlargement.

All the principal buildings that house one or other of the EU institutions display the flags of the 25 member states near their entrance. The flag is a purely symbolic manifestation of nationhood but it is a very evocative one. Even today, that I have already been four months in my current post, I still feel a sense of pride whenever I glance at the Maltese flag flying together with the flags of the 24 other EU member states, in the open space in front of the entrance to the European Court of Auditors. I feel proud of being Maltese and especially I feel proud that I have been part of the many significant changes that have taken place in Malta in these last years since independence.

It is too easy to be accused of falling into rhetoric but, as I have already acknowledged, flags are very potent symbols indeed. The defining moment of our independence remains the moment when the Maltese flag was raised at midnight on September 20, 1964. Now, 40 years later, that same flag is flying high, not only in Malta, but also in Brussels and in Luxembourg and in whichever country holds the Presidency of the EU at any particular point in time. This is no loss in sovereignty. It is not a renouncement of independence but it is perhaps one of its most potent manifestations.