EU multilingualism: the looming challenges

Abstract

The European Union’s motto “Unity in Diversity” is the demonstration of the enduring vision of Europe’s different languages and different cultures as a priceless asset. Ensuring that this diversity is not a barrier to understanding is the task of 10% of the European Commission staff, comprising roughly three quarters translators, one quarter interpreters. I shall of course be concentrating on the latter. Danica Seleskovitch very pertinently pointed out that the chain of communication does not stop in the booth. We in the European Commission’s Directorate-general for Interpretation have long taken this to heart, both literally and figuratively. Literally, in the sense that the ultimate destination of the message is of course the customer: I will present some key findings of our latest Customer Satisfaction Survey which has just been finalised. Figuratively, because the looming shortage of good young conference interpreters coming into the profession threatens that the message may only reach an empty booth for some languages. Within those two over-arching themes, there are of course other important interwoven issues which I would like to tease out for your consideration.