Multilingualism in the EU

Presentation for the Alpeuregio summer school

Brussels, 7 July 2014

Policy Officer Johan Häggman, DGT 02

What is multilingualism?

• several languages spoken within a geographical area;

• a person’s ability to master several languages;

• a policy requiring an organisation/a company/an institution to use several languages for communication

The world’s top 10 languagesby the number of native speakers

Mandarin

English

Hindi/UrduSpanish

Russian

Arabic

Bengali

Portuguese

JapaneseGerman

EU official languages over time

The legal basis

Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union

• Citizens have a right to address the official EU bodies in any of the EU’s official languages and to receive a reply in that language.

Council Regulation No 1/58

• Regulations and other documentsof general application shall bedrafted in the official languages.

Translation and democracy

Thanks to translation,people can helpbuild the EuropeanUnion and contribute toits openness andlegitimacy.

Types of languages

• Official/working/Treaty languages: 24

• Procedural languages: English, French, German

• Additional languages: Basque, Catalan, Galician, Scottish Gaelic and Welsh

Additional languages

UK or Spain Commission

Citizens

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Reply in the„regional” language

Written communicationin the

„regional” language

Original mail+ translation

into official language

Reply in theofficial language

Languages mean jobs!

Language industry:worth 8.4 billion EUR in 2008,

10% annual growth,20 billion EUR in 2015?

What else do we do?

Links with schools and universities

Machine translation

LIND-Web

StudiesTerminology and tools

European Day of Languages

VisitingTranslatorScheme

Translation contest for Europe’s budding linguists

Website: ec.europa.eu/translatoresFacebook.com/translatoresTwitter: @translatores

European Master’s in Translation

64 university programmesin Europe

Language industry web platform (LIND-Web)

ec.europa.eu/language-industry

• Promote visibility and recognition for the language industry

• Improve the exchange of knowledge and best practice among stakeholders

• Bring language professionals together

• Collect comparable data from EU countries

European Day of Languages26 September

• Translating Europe

• - Yearly forum

• -Workshops in Member

• States.

Translation studies

Clear Writing campaign

• Be concrete not abstract

• KISS! Keep It Short and Simple

• Cut out excess nouns

• Ask before you start: what, who, when, where, how, why, how much?

Cost of multilingualism

• Translation and interpreting in all EU institutions put together cost each EU citizen just over 2 euros per year.

• The cost of multilingualism adds up to less than 1% of the annual EU budget.

Cost of translation

• Challenge: doing more with less

• Improving cost-effectiveness

• Prioritisation – translation strategy

• Fit-for-purpose translation

• Machine translation, other tools

• Outsourcing

• Why have in-house translation?

Challenges ahead

• Future EU enlargements

• Doing more with less

• Modernity: efficiency gains by developing tools

• Recruitment: replacing retiring staff and attractingnew blood

Thank you for your attention!