Translation Service

General Secretariat of the Council

Quality Policy Coordinator

John BEAVEN

Quality Assurance at the Council of the EU’s Translation ServiceThe views expressed are my own and do not in any way reflect the Council’s views

Outline of presentation

• Introduction• Legislative workflow (OLP)• Translation quality• Fitness for purpose• Best Practices• Quality Monitoring

• 28 Member States• 24 Official Languages• 650 translators and 400 other staff (support

and management) for GSC Translation Service

• Translates about 13 000 documents, 150 000 pages of source material per year

• Outputs about 1.1 million pages / year of translation

Some figures - Council

• 1 language unit per language (25 translators, Head of Unit, Quality Controller, assistants)

• Translators work into their own language• Originally, every unit covered all source languages,

no longer practical by 2004.• EN (and FR) main drafting language(s)

Organisation of GSC Translation Service

• Very little is translated from scratch• Mostly legislative texts through their different

phases of adoption• Large amount of repetition• Consistency of terminology and phraseology

is paramount–internal (inside document)–external (across documents)

Peculiarities of GSC translation

• Council, in order of priority :•European Council conclusions•legal acts•agendas and minutes•speeches•press releases

• Parliament:•Amendments•Reports (legislative and non-legislative)•Plenary documents (agenda, minutes)

• Commission:•proposed laws, policy and consultation papers•consultation documents to or from national parliaments•correspondence with national authorities, companies and

individuals •websites and press releases

Types of translated documents

Outline of presentation

• Introduction• Legislative workflow (OLP)• Translation quality• Fitness for purpose• Best Practices• Quality Monitoring

• Formerly known as “Codecision”• Amended by Lisbon Treaty and now

known as “Ordinary Legislative Procedure”

• Increased importance of Parliament: in practice, EP becomes main legislator

Overview of the EU law-making process

Ordinary Legislative Procedure

Diagram is How the European Union works http://bookshop.europa.eu/en/how-the-european-union-works-pbNA3212336/

More info:http://www.europarl.europa.eu/aboutparliament/en/0081f4b3c7/Law-making-procedures-in-detail.html

http://www.consilium.europa.eu/council/decision-making-process?tab=At-a-glance&lang=en

Zoom in: 1st reading

Zoom in: 2nd reading

Zoom in: conciliation (3rd reading)

1st EP reading

• Preparatory work takes place in committees

• MEPs are entitled to work in the official language of their choice

• Typically, amendments at Committee stage are translated into 10-15 languages

Practical aspects - EP

1st Council reading

• Formally, most legislation is adopted by Council and EP on proposals from the Commission in all the official languages

• Before that, it is discussed at COREPER level (Ambassadors) at the Council

• And before that, at Working Party level (Council preparatory bodies)

• Full multilingualism is not necessary at the lower levels

• In parallel, EP discusses it at Committee level before going to Plenary

First reading - Practical aspects

• EP and Council 2nd readings take place in succession (first 9-EP, then 11-Council)

• Council works on text as amended by EP

Workflow: Tidy part

• EP and Council first readings (4 and 6) take place in parallel.

Workflow: Messy part

Ordinary Legislative Procedure• Source:http://www.europarl.europa.eu/code/information/activity_reports/activity_report_2009_2014_en.pdf

Outline of presentation

• Introduction• Legislative workflow (OLP)• Translation quality• Fitness for purpose• Best Practices• Quality Monitoring

An end product which transposes into the target language and by the set deadline the entire contents of the source document with clarity, fluency and precision, in terms of form and content, without any formal or material errors, and without any additions or omissions, while taking into account the nature and the relative importance of the original to be translated

Translation

• Linguistic– Clarity, fluency, precision– Without additions or omissions…

• Technical– Layout corresponds to that of the original– Technical and typographical conventions– Makes translations easier to recycle

• Quality of service– Deadlines– Special requests

Three aspects

Outline of presentation

• Introduction• Legislative workflow (OLP)• Translation quality• Fitness for purpose• Best Practices• Quality Monitoring

• A translation is fit for purpose when it is suitable for its intended communicative use, follows the linguistic and technical specifications and complies with the expressed and implied requirements of the client*.

*The main clients of the Translation Service are the European Council and its President, the rotating presidencies of the Council of the EU, the Council and its preparatory bodies, the requesting departments in the Directorates-General of the GSC, Member States' delegations and national administrations, other EU institutions, the EEAS, stakeholders in the subject areas concerned, and the general public.

Fitness for purpose

• Anybody can make a mistake, but you can adjust the effort devoted to spotting and correcting them to the nature of the text

• Taxonomy (classification) of Council documents with recommended best practices

Fitness for purpose

Outline of presentation

• Introduction• Legislative workflow (OLP)• Translation quality• Fitness for purpose• Best Practices• Quality Monitoring

• Detailed taxonomy of Council texts, outlining:

–Political visibility–Potential for legal / financial impact–Recommended level of revision–Minimum level of revision–Potential problems to look out for

Taxonomy

• Thorough revision (revision + review)

• Revision (normal bilingual revision)

• Light revision (review of the whole document + revision of potentially problematic or most important parts)

• Review (monolingual examination of the target text)

• Optional (no revision/review, unless the translator asks for it)

Levels of revision/review

European Council Conclusions• Political visibility

–Very high• Potential for legal / financial impact

–Low• Recommended level of revision

–Thorough• Minimum level of revision

–Thorough• Recommended BPs

–(…) The members of the summit teams should, whenever possible, translate the guidelines for conclusions and preliminary drafts of the conclusions in the run-up to the summit; in any case all members of the summit team should read the draft conclusions before the summit and, where necessary, discuss the main translation issues (…).

Examples of BP

AGENDAS FOR THE COUNCIL / COREPER / CSA / PSC • Political visibility

–Low• Potential for legal / financial impact

–Low• Recommended level of revision

–Optional• Minimum level of revision

–Optional• Recommended BPs

–Date and place of the meeting should be double checked.

Where the reference document exists, the agenda item title should correspond to the title of the reference document, with no modifications or improvements. However, typos and serious grammar mistakes should be corrected.

Examples of BP

Summary of Council acts• Political visibility

–Low• Potential for legal / financial impact

–Low• Recommended level of revision

–Optional• Minimum level of revision

–Optional• Recommended BPs

–The standard wording of repeated phrases should be ensured, either by use of CAT tools or templates.The statements should be quoted unchanged from the corresponding Council minutes, with the exception of obvious typographical, spelling and grammar errors..

Examples of BP

Outline of presentation

• Introduction• Legislative workflow (OLP)• Translation quality• Fitness for purpose• Best Practices• Quality Monitoring

• Based on random sampling of what leaves the Translation Service

• All pages are equally likely to be selected (cf. Monetary Unit Sampling used in auditing)

• Harmonised criteria across 24 languages, each with one evaluator or more (usually Quality Controller)

• Evaluators to work by consensus, avoiding endless discussions

Ex-post Quality Monitoring

Decided on a case-by-case basis–Discuss with members of staff involved–Issue Corrigendum–Issue terminology note to language unit–Clarify instructions given–Best practices required–etc.

Follow-up of problems

• Most serious errors occur in routine, everyday texts, not in the ‘difficult’ ones

• Very useful diagnostic tool, enabling us to identify problem areas and possible corrective measures

Some findings from ex-post monitoring

• Pragmatic approach• We have a tool to provide qualitative

performance indicators• Not aware of any other large translation

organisation monitoring the quality of its output by means of systematic random sampling

Summary

Questions / Comments?

Thank you