Students compete for EU translation prize[fr][de] 

The 'Juvenes Translatores' contest , in its second year, is open to secondary-school students throughout the bloc's 27 countries. It gives youngsters the opportunity to find out "what it is like to be a translator", according to European Commission's translation directorate, which is organising the event. 

The EU institutions employ translators and interpreters for all of the bloc's 23 official languages. Indeed, their language services collectively absorb 1% of the EU budget, or €1.1bn, every year. 

Rising costs mean EU language policy is becoming increasingly controversial. The present 23 official languages constitute 506 translation and interpreting combinations, a figure which would increase significantly if Croatia, Serbia and Turkey join the bloc. But the Commission's recent multilingualism communication, unveiled by Leonard Orban (the commissioner responsible for the policy) on 18 September, does not touch upon the institutional side of the dossier (EurActiv 19/10/08)

Indeed, the Commission's translation chief, Karl-Johan Lönnroth, said earlier this year that the multilingual nature of the EU institutions was "too politically sensitive" an issue to be dramatically reformed (EurActiv 25/02/08). Thus, the Union would "just have to cope" with increased linguistic pressures brought on by future enlargements, he said, because "no decision-maker would dare to touch the main principles" of multilingualism policy. 

But despite such commitment to a multilingual Europe, English continues to dominate EU language curricula, a trend which will only increase in future, according to a Commission-endorsed report published by Eurydice last week (EurActiv 24/11/08). 

As for the contest, the EU executive hopes it will encourage more young Europeans to consider a career in languages. Describing the feedback from last year's event as "enthusiastic", it said that for its Greek victor, "winning the contest was decisive in her taking up translation and interpretation studies". 

Roughly 2,500 students from the 618 participating schools – which were selected at random due to the high level of interest in the event – will be asked to translate a short text from one official EU language into another. Participants are free to choose whichever languages they prefer. 

The number of schools each country is sending to the event is directly proportional to the number of votes its government holds in the European Council. France, Germany, Italy and the UK are each sending pupils from 58 schools, while Malta is represented by six establishments.

"The contest is not only a great chance for young people to try out their skills as translators, but experience from last year's contest has shown that it also sparks more interest in language learning and translation," said Multilingualism Commissioner Orban. "The first contest, held in 2007, was in fact so popular that a second round was due. This time, we wanted to give more schools a chance to participate and doubled the number of schools to be selected," he added.  

A panel of Commission translators will select the winning entries. The list of winners will be published on the 'Juvenes Translatores' website by the end of January 2009, with the victors awarded prizes at a ceremony in Brussels in the spring.