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1. Why we translate
During its brief history, the European Union has grown greatly in terms of the area it covers, its political significance and its institutions. The founding Treaties of 1951 and 1957 have been revised several times: in 1987 (the Single European Act), in 1992 (the Treaty on European Union, signed at Maastricht) and in 1997 (Treaty of Amsterdam). In December 2000 some further changes were proposed in the Treaty of Nice.
The ultimate goal of the European Union is “an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe, in which decisions are taken as openly as possible and as closely as possible to the citizen” (Article 1 of the Treaty on European Union). It aims to promote economic and social progress that is balanced and sustainable, to assert the European identity on the international scene and to introduce a European citizenship for the nationals of the Member States.
One of the provisions of the Treaty on European Union, laid down in Article 6, is that
“The Union shall respect the national identities of its Member States”.
The European Union institutions exist to serve the EU and its citizens, a community of peoples with a fascinating variety of customs, characteristics – and languages.
Multilingualism: the principle
In the context of the European Union, the word “multilingual” has taken on a meaning that goes beyond its dictionary definition of “speaking or using many languages”, or “written or printed in many languages”. For us, multilingualism is a fundamental principle with the additional meaning of “equal rights for all official languages”.
Equal status for the official languages goes to the heart of what the European Union is all about. Language is a part of national and personal identity. There can be no question of imposing a sort of artificial “Euro-identity” – far from it: the languages of Europe are part of its immense and diverse cultural heritage, and they should be cherished.
At the outset in the 1950s there were six Member States: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Between them they had four official languages: Dutch, French, German and Italian.
Now, after the most recent accessions in 1995, the European Union has 15 Member States:
Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
and 11 official languages:
Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish
It is fair to ask why we need so many official languages. Why can’t we manage with a smaller number, like the United Nations, UNESCO, NATO, OECD and other international organisations?
The answer is to be found in the word “Union” (previously “Community”), which denotes a much deeper level of integration than the intergovernmental cooperation taking place in organisations like the UN. The ambition of the European Union is to be a “Union of Citizens”. Its institutions produce legislation that is directly applicable to all citizens in all the Member States and must therefore be available in their official languages.
Equality before the law
The need for certainty as to the law is the first reason why translation plays such a large part in the activities of the European institutions.
Article 249 of the Treaty establishing the European Community (EC Treaty) describes the different types of legal instrument produced by the European Union institutions:
“In order to carry out their task and in accordance with the provisions of this Treaty, the European Parliament acting jointly with the Council, the Council and the Commission shall make regulations and issue directives, take decisions, make recommendations or deliver opinions.
A regulation shall have general application. It shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.
A directive shall be binding, as to the result to be achieved, upon each Member State to which it is addressed, but shall leave to the national authorities the choice of form and methods.
A decision shall be binding in its entirety upon those to whom it is addressed.
Recommendations and opinions shall have no binding force.”
As Article 249 shows, the different types of instrument are binding in different ways. Regulations are binding in their entirety and directly applicable in all the Member States; Decisions are binding on those to whom they are addressed; Directives are binding, as to the result to be achieved, upon each Member State to which they are addressed. The precise methods of achieving these results are left to the Member States (shall leave to the national authorities the choice of form and methods).
The important point is that most of these instruments are binding in some way, and that is why they have to be translated. It is simply a matter of democracy. It is a legal obligation and a democratic necessity to present Community legislation to European citizens in their own language in order to guarantee equality before the law. Ignorance of the law is no defence, so the law cannot be imposed in an incomprehensible foreign language. Scottish whisky distillers, Danish civil servants, German industrialists, British barristers, Finnish students, French wine growers, Italian car designers and the rest must always have access to the European legislation affecting them. And they must have access to it in their own language.
The means of public access to Community law – and the place where many of our translations are published – is the Official Journal of the European Communities (re-named the “Official Journal of the European Union” in the Nice Treaty of December 2000). The Official Journal is the only periodical published every working day in all the official languages of the European Union. It is produced by the Office for Official Publications (EUR-OP) in paper and CD-ROM editions (for subscriptions and charges see EUR-OP’s website <http://eur-op.eu.int/index>). Legislation can also be accessed, against payment, in the two online databases CELEX and EUDOR. An additional online service, EUR-Lex, is available free of charge at http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex.
But the final versions of legislation published in the Official Journal are just the tip of the iceberg. Every legal act published is the outcome of a long process of discussion and negotiation. Proposals made by the Commission are normally based on cooperation with outside contacts – committees of national government experts, representatives of the private sector, universities and economic and social interests – whose opinions are required before any decision can be taken. Translation is needed at all the many stages in the preparation of Community legislation:
• preparing the working papers, which often include a substantial amount of technical documentation;
• examining the draft versions, which require extensive consultation;
• putting together the final text, which represents a commitment by the Commission and is likely to reach a broad spectrum of readers;
• preparing the written information that the Commission is required to circulate at all levels once its proposal has been adopted;
• discussing and amending the proposal in the European Parliament and Council prior to finalisation.
Citizenship of the Union
The European Union institutions are not there just to churn out regulations. Article 21 (third indent) of the EC Treaty states that:
“Every citizen of the Union may write to any of the institutions or bodies referred to in this Article or in Article 7 in one of the languages mentioned in Article 314 and have an answer in the same language.” (Article 7 lists the institutions; Article 314 names the official languages)
This provision was introduced by the Amsterdam Treaty, which was signed in 1997 and entered into force on 1 May 1999. It aims to give equal treatment to all European citizens regardless of their mother tongue. It means that every member of the European public is entitled to write to any of the institutions, for whatever reason, in the language of their choice – as long as it is one of the official languages – and to receive a reply in the same language.
Another new provision introduced by the Amsterdam Treaty, in Article 255 of the EC Treaty, was:
“Any citizen of the Union […] shall have a right of access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents.”
This also has obvious implications for translation; accessibility implies providing a version in a language the citizen can understand.
The number of official languages has grown gradually to the present number of 11 from the original four (Dutch, French, German and Italian, the languages of the original six Member States). In 1973 Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom joined, so Danish and English were added; in 1981 Greece joined, adding Greek; in 1986 Portugal and Spain brought Portuguese and Spanish, and in 1995, Austria, Finland and Sweden joined, bringing two more official languages: Finnish and Swedish.
When new Member States join, the Treaties are translated into the new official languages, and these new language versions are as “authentic” (legally valid) as the four initial versions. That is why the Treaties now exist in 11 language versions, or to be precise, in 12 languages, because there is also an Irish version. Irish is a Treaty language but not an official language or a working language of the institutions, although it may be used as an official language for cases in the European Court of Justice, and the Court’s rules of procedure also exist in Irish.
People often ask why the official languages do not include all the languages spoken in the European Union. Why don’t speakers of Welsh, Basque, Catalan and Breton have the same rights to use their languages for dealings with the institutions? This is a fair question, but the answer is that the “official language” of each Member State is the one it has stipulated during the membership negotiations. The choice is not dictated by the EU institutions. The Member States themselves have taken a political decision to keep the number of official languages within limits in order to minimise administrative difficulties and costs. That is why the 15 Member States have only 11 official languages between them: because several of them share one or more official languages with a neighbouring country: Austria and Germany share German, Ireland and the United Kingdom share English, and so on. (See also Article 8 of Council Regulation No 1, quoted below.)
Legal basis of multilingualism
The Treaty of Paris, which set up the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, did not mention multilingualism; this first Treaty was authentic only in French. Nor did language matters and the policy of multilingualism feature in the two Treaties of Rome signed in 1957, setting up the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community (Eurato...
