Interpretation goes beyond words at EU level

Written by Adela Tudorache on August 7, 2013. Posted in Articles, Strategy

DG Interpretation, also known as SCIC (Service Commun Interprétation-Conférences) is the interpreting service and conference organizer of the European Commission, but the interpretation provided actually goes beyond the needs of the Commission, as it ‘serves’ the requests of several other bodies within the EU: the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of Regions, the European Investment Bank, as well as a number of European Offices and agencies in the Member States. The truth is there’s more here than meets the eye.

Mission Their mission is to support multilingual communication and to facilitate transparent, efficient and democratic EU-decision making by providing:

quality conference interpreting services;
support to interpreting programmes for interpreters, universities and students;
an effective conference organization capability for Directorates General and departments of the Commission;
technological solutions for multilingual communications and technical support to the Commission’s meetings and conference facilities.

Challenges the EU is facing in 2013 After receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012, “for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe”, 2013 is a crucial year for the EU. Besides the new challenges that the Union is facing on a global scale, it also has to:

contribute more effectively to growth and job creation;
improve short and long term competitiveness;
foster genuine economic and monetary union;
build tomorrow’s networks (telecommunications, energy, transport, digital networks);
build a safe and secure Europe.

One may wonder what the interpreting service has to do with all this. Well, quality interpretation is essential for an effective decision making process. It goes without saying that the delegates from the member states do not speak the same language and therefore, interpretation is needed to ensure that the messages within the conferences are well transmitted and clearly understood. SCIC Management plan (2013) SCIC has divided its objectives into two main categories: for their core activities and for support activities. The first category comprises specific objectives for operational activities that include:

Quality Interpretation Services
Training and support to the multilingual policy
Technical and logistic support for multilingual events
- Meeting room infrastructure management
- Conference management systems
Conference organization

For the second, they established specific objectives for horizontal activities that are meant to help better organize their ‘main line of business’:

Policy strategy and coordination
- Strategic planning
- Internal communication
Administrative support
- Financial Management
- HR management

For our purposes, it would more useful to analyze the objectives for horizontal activities (although it would also be interesting to see the indicators and the targets they’ve set for the first category), which aim at providing enhanced support to SCIC’s core business. For better understanding these objectives, my next post (which will ‘appear’ on Monday, the 12^th of August) will be reserved for this subject exclusively. References