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These men and women have been working to make the European Union
more understandable by all its citizens for over fifty years. Whereas
community multilingualism had imposed itself as a pragmatic solution
in the beginning, it has turned into the element differentiating the
European Union today. This has become one of Europe’s fundamental
principles and translation naturally plays a major part in the respect
of European identity. […]
Multilingualism established from the beginning of the Communities
made translation more than necessary to European construction.
Translators are the key to unblock that Babel context. They
demonstrated humility, courage and perseverance in endeavouring
for the European idea.
K.-J. Lönnroth, Studies on translation and multilingualism. Translation
in the Commission, 1958-2010, European Commission, Directorate
General for Translation © European Commission, 2009.

Europe turned its multilingualism into a delicate and highly complex
tool for its politics. Its motto, “united in diversity” (“in varietate concordia”)
is translated into the Union’s twenty-four languages – not to mention the
languages of candidate States: Serbia (whose language is the same as that
of Croatia but written in Cyrillic letters), Macedonia, even the improbable
Turkey; not forgetting potential languages or regional dialects which could
become official, too, one day: Basque, Bearnese, Breton, Catalan, Corsican,
Scots Gaelic, Friulian, Friesian, Galician, Welsh, Luxembourgish, Provençal,
Sardinian, Sassarese, Scoti, Silesian… We must picture something better
than a happy Babel: an expandable and growing one!
Universal translation is a permanent obligation within the EU and
complying with it in the conference space gives interpreters the whole
measure of their role. Interpreters have multiple open booths at their
disposal round conference and reception halls in the Europa building.
Each person attending a summit or a ministers’ meeting can speak in his
or her own language, he or she will be simultaneously translated into all
other languages of the Union. Does a small number of “working languages”
(on principle, French and German but mainly English which has become
predominant) facilitate exchanges? This is no certainty as the use of
international English, which has more or less turned into a lingua franca,
is not always the most relevant (except to native speakers) for diplomatic
subtleties or for the whole palette of political arbitrations. For want of
multilingual speakers, the resources of linguistic combinatorics, in which
each language is paired with another twenty-three, should be exploited:
that is five hundred fifty-two combinations (two hundred seventy-six