Language overload lies at the hub of Parliament’s problems

Date: 16/09/1999

By Rory Watson

THE prospect of more official EU languages with the enlargement of the Union eastwards is forcing the European Parliament to introduce radical measures to prevent it collapsing like the Tower of Babel.

Senior MEPs accept that with the arrival of Hungarian, Estonian, Polish, Czech and Slovenian - plus the other languages to be added as more countries join - the present system under which all languages are translated directly into all others whenever possible will no longer be tenable. The existing 11 official languages produce 110 possible linguistic combinations; with 16, this rises to 240.

As it is, successive enlargements have led to the increasing use of a relay system, with, for example, Danish translated into Portuguese via French. But even this practice would come under unbearable strain with the eventual arrival of up to ten lesser-used languages if a speaker's original words had to go through a multiple relay. The inevitable delays and possible loss of accuracy would seriously hamper the Parliament's work.

To extend the present system to 21 languages would require a team of 105 interpreters, with five per booth for just one meeting. Apart from the cost of employing more interpreters, there is the purely practical consideration that the Parliament's interpreting booths can only accommodate three people at most and that there is virtually no possibility of expanding them.

The final element in the complex equation is political. While it might be feasible for the European Commission and the Council of Ministers to insist that officials and diplomats work in a language other than their own, imposing such a requirement on directly elected MEPs would be seen as profoundly undemocratic.

"MEPs are elected on a political platform, not because of their linguistic skills. You cannot insist that they speak a foreign language - it would make a mockery of the system," said one official.

Faced with these conflicting pressures, the Parliament's bureau has decided that the only way all MEPs will be able to speak and listen to debates in their own languages is to adopt a 'hub-and-spoke' system in which interpreters would translate into and out of their mother tongue using a pilot language. Thus Polish might be translated into Dutch via English, French or German.

The system will initially be used for Finnish and for the languages of the leading applicants for Union membership, but could eventually be extended to cover other existing official languages.