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Matthew Vella
In what is emerging to have been a political ploy in the ‘get-into-Europe-at-all-costs’ campaign, Malta has to come to terms with the fact it does not have interpreters to interpret Maltese into other languages at the European Union’s institutions.
With only eight posts filled out of the eighty interpreters required every day for the Maltese language to be fully serviced in Brussels, the Maltese posse of interpreters suffered yet another blow when leading interpreter Vicki Cremona was surprisingly anointed ambassador to France.
Although the interpretation service is still functioning whilst Maltese remains an official language, it is believed that Malta’s MEPs could have carried on just as well by falling back onto their second language, English.
But Maltese remains one of the most understaffed languages in the European Commission as MEPs find themselves unable to have speeches by their colleagues translated in Maltese.
With just eight interpreters at the European Commission, the interpretation from other languages into Maltese was ceased just after the first two European Parliament plenary sessions, MaltaToday can confirm.
A Maltese MEP speaking to this newspaper confirmed that interpretation services today have been limited to speeches in Maltese being translated into other languages but not vice-versa.
Committee meetings also do not provide any Maltese interpretation, the only exception having been Commissioner Joe Borg’s hearing in the European Parliament.
Although an official EU language, the Maltese authorities responsible for the provision of an interpreters pool for the Maltese language have been caught off-guard since the island’s accession into the community.
Ian Anderson, communications head at the Directorate General for Interpretation (SCIC), has told MaltaToday that 80 interpreters are required every day to provide interpretation services. The Maltese language remains greatly understaffed with only eight.
According to Andersen, training interpreters is the responsibility of the Maltese government. “The SCIC is providing support in various ways. The Maltese government, SCIC and the European Parliament are working with the University of Westminster to train interpreter trainers. The intention is to set up a high-level post-graduate course in Valletta, starting from September-October 2005, and have the first newly trained interpreters graduate in spring 2006.”
The Maltese interpreters provide interpretation services into English, French, Italian and Spanish. Other languages make use of the relay service by interpreting from one of the languages provided by the Maltese interpreters, and not directly from the speaker. Maltese MEPs are however expected to make use of the interpretation services from other languages, such as English.
They work mainly in EP plenaries and Council meetings at ministerial levels. At times they also provide interpretation for the plenaries of the Committee of the Regions or the European Economic and Social Committee and sometimes in Commissioners’ press conferences.
The recent appointment of Vicky Cremona as ambassador to France, formerly the co-ordinator of the Theatre Studies programme at the University of Malta and an interpreter for the French language at the European Parliament, has further decimated the Maltese pool of interpreters.
An addition to the interpreters’ pool has been Dr Carmelo Vassallo, the former co-ordinator of the Hispanic Studies programme at the University of Malta. His post at university remains vacant today.
Juncker’s regret
Luxemburg’s Prime Minister Jean Claude Juncker has gone on record saying he regretted the fact that Maltese had been recognised as an official language of the bloc.
He said Luxembourg had never asked for its language to be an official EU language since Luxembourgeois citizens speak French and German. Juncker said Malta should have followed Luxembourg’s example instead of making its demand for official language status.
Juncker’s comments were reported by The Times to have annoyed the Maltese government, which so far has failed to provide enough support for the training and recruitment of Maltese interpreters and translators.
Characterised by the lack of preparation to provide enough Maltese translators and interpreters prior to accession, Maltese remains one of the few EU official language that does not have any linguistic databases or style guides on the European Union’s website.
Even in the field of written translation, Maltese lags behind other languages as it still has not reached a staff complement of around 100 translators. Post-graduate courses in translation at the University of Malta only started in 2003 and its first batch of graduates are expected later this year.
Translation firms in Malta are still concerned about the effects of a three-year derogation on Malta’s translation obligations, ironically awarded the day of Malta’s accession to the EU on 1 May, 2004, stating that not all EU documents were to be translated in Maltese due to the lack of qualified linguists and translators. The regulation stated that it was not possible to translate to Maltese “all acts adopted by the institutions”.
Translation companies will be meeting a Maltese mission from the Directorate General for Translation in April to discuss the situation.
matthew@newsworksltd.com
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