Lawmakers approved on Tuesday (21 November) a report by Stanimir Ilchev, a Bulgarian Liberal MEP, changing the procedural rules for the recording of plenary debates.
As of the next plenary, on 10 December, the Parliament will no longer be required to translate the session into all 23 official languages of the European Union, a process which has proved costly and can take up to four months.
The EU legislative will only record proceedings in their original language, while still being required to translate them following a request by a member state.
Ilchev rejected proposals to only translate the sessions into English, which he said could “appear linguistically unjust”.
But he said the move would not harm multilingualism, which is enshrined in the EU treaties. “Of course this principle is not in question and everyone can listen to our debates in plenary in their own language (through interpretation),” Ilchev said.
Further, the amended rules of procedure require the Parliament to broadcast all proceedings in real time on its website in all the active interpretation languages.
A Parliament source told EurActiv that scaling down the plenary translation service had been on the minds of both the administration and MEPs for a number of years, but that only now was the video service being used enough to justify the change.
But the move may come as a disappointment to defenders of multilingualism, some of whom have described the Parliament as a 'Noah's Ark' of languages against what they view as the flood of English into the EU institutions.
Ilchev told EurActiv that to his knowledge no jobs would be cut despite the reduction in workload, but did not mention whether fewer freelancers would be taken on.
"Moreover", he said, "it is clear that in a broader aspect we all have to be adequate to the current situation in EU and align our activities to the general appeal for budgetary cuts and austerity measures."
"[European Parliament] cannot be an exception to this common policy."
