BULETINUL Vol.

LXII
61-66 Seria Filologie
Universităţii Petrol – Gaze din Ploieşti No. 2/2010

The Matter of Regulations in Translating EP

Committee Documents
Corina Georgescu, Adriana Apostol

University of Pitesti, 1, Str. Targul din Vale, nr.1, Pitesti, Arges

E-mail: georgescu_c@yahoo.fr, silvadius@yahoo.com

Abstract
The matter of being precise when translating involves many aspects. Rendering the content when
translating is usually perceived as an element of utmost importance, but in official documents the form is
at least as meaningful as the content.
Official bodies have established regulations in order to standardize documents of public interest. Such is
the case of the European Parliament, the European institution in charge with multilingualism which has
its own special translation units, but it also has recourse to freelance professional translators who should
meet its quality requirements. In order to meet these translation standards, freelance translators shall
first be acquainted with them and then put them into practice. Within this frame, our paper uses
documents issued in English by the Subcommittee on Security and Defence and their in-house translation
into Romanian on one hand and, on the other hand, an unofficial translation made by a freelance
translator who is not accustomed to EP translation requirements and peculiarities. Our paper aims at
showing what kind of problems one may encounter when translating official documents issued by the
European Parliament and is focused on the matter of standardization in translation in point of form.

Keywords: translation, Parliamentary documents, quality requirements

Introduction
The European Parliament (EP) is different from all the other EU institutions by its
“obligation to ensure multilingualism”, as any European Union citizen should be able to read
the regulations concerning him for a better understanding in his own native language. As any
citizen has the right to be elected as a MEP, he / she should be able to attend the parliamentary
debates, to ask questions and be answered in his / her language [6] .
According to the Parliamentary Regulations (See Rules of Procedure of the European
Parliament, Chapter 3, Rule 146: Languages), “all Community languages are equally
important” and that is why all the documents are published in all the official languages of the
European Union (EU) [3]. Since 2007, there have been 23 official languages meaning a number
of 506 possible translation combinations. In order to meet this requirement, the EP established a
very well organized system made up of a number of translation units [6]. Moreover, there is also
a Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union. However, all these professional
translators are not enough; so, in order to do everything in due time, the EP is obliged to
frequently resort to external translators for non-priority texts.
Within this frame, our paper uses documents in English issued by the Subcommittee on
Security and Defence and their in-house translation into Romanian on one hand and, on the
other hand, an unofficial translation made by a freelance translator who is not accustomed to EP
62 The Matter of Regulations in Translating EP Committee

translation requirements and peculiarities. The documents we refer to are the following: Draft
Agenda of SEDE Meeting on 3rd September 2009; Minutes of the Constituent Meeting on 20th
July 2009; EP Recommendation to the Council of 24 April 2009 on Non-proliferation and the
Future of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).
When translating, rendering the content is usually perceived as an element of utmost
importance, but in official documents the form is at least as meaningful as the content. That is
why our paper aims at showing that both of the above mentioned aspects are equally worth
being taken into account when dealing with the matter of standardization in translation. This is
an important issue for all the European institutions which have created special “reference tools”
(such as translation memory software or translation databases) and have prepared staff (lawyer-
linguists, translators, terminologists, proofreaders) in charge with ensuring “legal, linguistic and
terminological consistency” and “maintaining a legal terminology database” [4].
The first part of our paper aims at analyzing the three documents by focusing on the
content aspects of the documents in English and their official Romanian translations that we
compare with translations made by freelance translators who are not accustomed to EP internal
rules of translation.
The second part of this paper draws on peculiar aspects related to form in each type of
the document taken into account.

Content Remarks
For methodological reasons, we shall refer to the texts in English as source texts (ST),
while for the translations we shall use TT1 (target text 1) for the official version and TT2 (target
text 2) for the freelancer’s translation.
The first document we have taken into account is the EP recommendation to the
Council of 24 April 2009 on non-proliferation and the future of the Treaty on the Non-
Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) issued by the Subcommittee on Security and Defence.
It reveals from the very beginning a difference between the two translations. In the TT1, the
translator rendered the title of the document by having recourse to adding two words in order to
complete the meaning as it is shown in the table below:
Table 1
ST TT1 TT2
Non-proliferation and the future of the Neproliferarea armelor nucleare şi Neproliferarea şi viitorul Tratatului
Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of viitorul Tratatului privind neproliferarea privind neproliferarea armelor nucleare
Nuclear Weapons (NPT) armelor nucleare (TNP) (NPT)

With regard to the fact that in the second part of the title the respective treaty is
mentioned and to the coordination of the two parts as a specific procedure for the Romanian
language, the translator added the attribute „armelor nucleare” in order to avoid ambiguity,
whereas in TT2 the respective attribute is absent which might mislead the reader making him
believe that the noun „neproliferarea” is determined by the noun in genitive „tratatului”.
In the subtitle of the same document, one can notice the modulation at work in TT1.
Table 2
ST TT1 TT2
European Parliament Recomandarea Parlamentului European Recomandarea Parlamentului European
recommendation to the Council of 24 adresată Consiliului din 24 aprilie 2009 către Consiliul din 24 aprilie 2009 cu
April 2009 on non-proliferation and privind neproliferarea armelor nucleare şi privire la neproliferarea şi la viitorul
the future of the Treaty on the Non- viitorul Tratatului de neproliferare a armelor Tratatului de neproliferare a armelor
Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons nucleare nucleare

One may notice that in TT1 special attention is paid to rendering meaning without any
ambiguity. The translator adds the word „adresată” in order to render the context more explicite,
while in TT2 there is a literal translation. Moreover, a simple search on EUR-Lex [5] (website
providing free access to European Union law) will show a high frequency of rendering
 Corina Georgescu, Adriana Apostol 63

“recommendation to” by „recomandare adresată” and not by „recomandare către”. As in the

case of rendering “on” by “privind” rather than by “cu privire la”, what might seem a pointless
distinction in terms of meaning is, in fact, what makes the difference between an in-house
translation which respects standard translations of legislative acts aiming at stylistic
uniformity and translations made by “outsiders”, who are not acquainted with such
institutional translation rules or conventions.
The first part of the document enumerates the premises at the basis of the Council’s
recommendations. The former are introduced by the syntagm “having regard to” (a syntagm
largely used in law for citations („referiri”) which is rendered in TT1 by „având în vedere”
while in TT2 it is rendered by „cu privire la”. There are two reasons for which we consider the
translation in TT2 inappropriate. First of all, it does not convey the same meaning as “having
regard to”; „cu privire la” means “referring to”, which changes the logical relation between the
subordinate clauses (introduced by “having regard to”) and the main clause: “The European
Parliament […] addresses the following recommendations to the Council”. The only meaningful
and correct translation is: „Parlamentul European, având în vedere articolul X, articolul Y,
adresează Consiliului recomandările următoare ...” and not * „Parlamentul European, cu privire
la articolul X, articolul Y, adresează Consiliului recomandările următoare ...”. Secondly, the
Style Guide requires the use of „având în vedere” in the case of citations giving the legal basis
that is treaties, accession acts, agreements, protocols, conventions, etc. [12]. Their motivation is
that “in theory, the uniform conventions which have been kept must be used at all stages of the
written procedure rather than any other solution proposed elsewhere or used previously” [8].
Special attention should be paid to long titles of agreements and protocols implying
word order and determination. The following examples illustrate mistakes caused by inattention
and/or misunderstanding of the relation between the determiner and the determined element, as
well as accuracy mistakes which could have been avoided if the translator had searched the
titles of the respective agreements or organizations in an official database.
Table 3
The first three examples outline content mistakes caused by the misinterpretation of the
ST TT1 TT2
The International Atomic Energy Agency Acordurile de garanţii generalizate şi Agenţia internaţională pentru energie
Comprehensive Safeguards Agreements protocoalele adiţionale ale Agenţiei atomică, Acordurile privind garanţiile
and Additional Protocols Internaţionale a Energiei Atomice multilaterale şi protocoalele adiţionale
The Global Threat Reduction Initiative Iniţiativa globală de reducere a Iniţiativa de reducere a ameninţării
ameninţărilor globale
The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty Tratatul de reducere a armelor strategice Tratatul strategic de reducere a armelor
(START I) (START I) (START I)
The International Convention Convenţia Convenţia internaţională pentru
for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear internaţională privind reprimarea actelor suprimarea actelor de terorism nuclear
Terrorism de terorism nuclear
OCCAR-EA (Organisation for Joint OCCAR-EA (Organizaţia de Cooperare OCCAR-EA (Organizaţia de Cooperare
Armament Cooperation - Comună în materie de Armament - comună pentru Armament- Administraţia
Executive Administration) administraţia generală) Executivă).
relation between the determiner and the determined elements. In the first example, the noun
“agency” with its modifiers (“The International Atomic Energy”) is in genitive, a relation which
is correctly rendered in TT1 by “ale Agenţiei”, while TT2 neglects the genitive relation between
agreements/protocols and agency and replaces it with two juxtaposed elements.
The second example outlines a particular case: from a linguistic point of view, TT2 is a
correct translation of the English version (“Iniţiativa de reducere a ameninţării globale” for
“The Global Threat Reduction Initiative”): the freelancer’s translation is better than the official
one. However, as the official title under which the document on the “Global Threat Reduction
Initiative” was first published in the Romanian correspondent document was „Iniţiativa globală
de reducere a ameninţărilor” translators are obliged to respect it. Any change in the form of the
official documents’ title requires special approval procedures.
The last two examples are not related to meaning issues as they are similar in meaning
and linguistically correct, the only difference, which is not at all insignificant as we are speaking
64 The Matter of Regulations in Translating EP Committee

about meeting specific translation standards, is the freelancers’ obligation to use the exact titles
of the documents as they appear in the EP translation databases.
In order to avoid this type of mistake the translator should search the respective
agreements and protocols in an official database, such as Eurlex which provides free access to
European Union law and other documents considered to be public: treaties, international
agreements, legislation in force, preparatory acts, case-law and parliamentary questions.
The translation of partial synonyms is a very difficult issue as there are slight
differences in meaning between them. For instance, if in the ST one uses the expression “under
the control”, TT1 uses „sub egida” and TT2 uses „sub controlul”. According to the Romanian
explanatory dictionary [2], „sub controlul” involves a permanent analysis of an activity situation
in order to take steps to improve it, while „sub egida” strictly refers to support, protection and
guiding. Therefore, we consider that the TT2 is closer to the original text, being more
appropriate.
Special attention should be paid to numbers and to the way one approximates them. We
take as example TT1 in which “up to EUR 25 million” is rendered by „cu 25 milioane EUR”
while the correct translation is „cu până la 25 de milioane de euro”, the version given by TT2.
This example does not raise only the question of being precise in expressing numbers but also a
form issue related to the use of the preposition „de” and of the abbreviation EUR/euro.
According to the Style Guide published by the European Institute of Romania [7], in Romanian
one should use „de” after numbers bigger than 19 and in front of a second noun that determines
the numeral when the millions are rendered by letters and not by figures. Concerning the
abbreviations EUR/euro, both forms are admitted: „25 de milioane de euro” and „25 milioane
EUR”.
The translator should always have in mind the type of document he deals with.
Documents issued by a subcommittee such as the Subcommittee on Security and Defence use a
specific vocabulary whose terms should be well known or carefully looked for. In order to be
clearly understood, we can provide an example on this aspect: „fissile material” is wrongly
rendered in TT2 by „material fizibil” whereas the correct form is „material de fisiune” as in
TT1.
Rendering meaning in translating official documents is essential, as it may cause serious
damage in diplomatic relations. When one deals with a vital issue such as the struggle against
the proliferation of nuclear weapons, being precise in content is a must. Yet, the form is also
important in order to maintain good diplomatic relations and to avoid political conflicts.
An important linguistic concept which should be carefully handled is the difference
between the declarative and performative verbs. According to Austin’s theory [1], the
performative verbs express an action which is being done by the act of speaking: “invite”,
“protest”, “request”, etc. Within this frame, the original English term “support” is rendered
differently in TT1 and TT2: in the official version, it is rendered by a performative verb, „să îşi
reafirme sprijinul”, while in TT2 it is rendered by „să sprijine” which is a declarative verb. The
fact that someone asserts one’s support is not at all the same with the action of supporting. In
order to improve both of the translations we suggest „să continue să sprijine” which renders the
idea of continuity involved by “support further efforts”.
Keeping the letter of the target language (TL) by all means has a big influence on the
way the message is conveyed and perceived. That is why avoiding repetition should be one of
the translator’s main concerns.
In TT1, which is the official translation, one notices an inappropriate structure:
„asigurarea caracterului sigur al activităţilor nucleare”. In TT2 the repetition is not the same but
it does exist; the translator changes the repeated term: „transformarea activităţilor nucleare în
activităţi sigure”. Under these circumstances we consider that a third version is better:
„desfăşurarea activităţilor nucleare în condiţii de securitate”. Another topic that we bring into
discussion is the translation of the verb “deepen” in „deepen its dialogue”. Both TT1 and TT2
render it by the Romanian „a adânci dialogul” which we consider inappropriate because it joins
 Corina Georgescu, Adriana Apostol 65

a concrete and an abstract term. Therefore, we suggest its replacement by „a intensifica

dialogul”.

Remarks on Form
Any translator is supposed to know that the EP has a series of typographic instructions
as well as conventions for each language [7].
The other two documents we refer to (Draft Agenda of SEDE Meeting on 3rd
September 2009; Minutes of the Constituent Meeting on 20th July 2009) are very good
examples for obeying/disobeying the internal rules of the European Institutions. The
Interinstitutional Style Guide is a useful working tool, in order to provide clear and correct
paper or electronic manuscripts. The freelance translator must be acquainted with all its details,
especially with all the house rules for the preparation of the text: punctuation, verbs, spelling,
capitals and lower case, numbers, dates and time, italics, abbreviations, contractions, symbols
and accronyms.
Fist of all, the external translator must use the „Recueil de modèles” (RdM) in order to
find the respective document type, to download the template and use it for the translation. Each
RdM contains both formal and content instructions and a model for the respective type of
document. All the models in RdM have a normative character.
Draft agendas and minutes have special headings and references that can be found only
in the RdM. The “original agenda is created in English or French using a specialized application
based on standard phrases. These phrases are pre-translated into the other languages” [9], this
avoids approximate translations, which are not according to the official models, such as TT2.

We reproduce below an example of draft agenda according to the RdM.

PARLAMENTUL EUROPEAN

 
 
2004   2009
 
 

Comisia pentru [afaceri externe]

(Subcomisia pentru [drepturile omului])
[AFET(2006)0000_1]
PROIECT DE ORDINE DE ZI
One of the freelancers’ frequent mistakes is the use of acronyms. For instance in TT2,
the freelancer used the acronym in English. According to the Style Guide, 3.4.11, he should
have written the respective name in full letters into Romanian before mentioning the acronym
for the first time between brackets:

ST TT1 TT2
ESDP Perspectiva Dezvoltării Spaţiului European (ESDP) ESDP
The same document shows an inappropriate way of writing the date and the time
(11:15), whereas the house regulations require a different form (11.15). [9]

After having analyzed three different documents issued by the Subcommittee on Security
and Defence, we can underline that accuracy in meaning and in form is the essential condition
for a good translation. In order to achieve accuracy in meaning, a translator should pay attention
to wholly rendering the message (by sentence modulation or addition, by observing logical
66 The Matter of Regulations in Translating EP Committee

relations within the clause, by using the specific vocabulary of the respective field, by avoiding
repetition, ambiguity, inappropriate synonyms, etc.). As for the accuracy in form, the translator
must observe the rules in the Style Guide (on punctuation, verbs, spelling, capitals and lower
case, numbers, dates and time, italics, abbreviations, contractions, symbols and accronyms,
etc.), use the Recueil de modèles, the official translation memory software, but maybe the most
important thing for a person who wants to become an EP external translator is to keep in mind
that in this case apparently minor differences in meaning and form make the difference between
an acceptable and an unacceptable translation for the EP.

References
1. A u s t i n , J-L, How to do things with words, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1976
2. Dicţionarul Explicativ al Limbii Române, Ed. a 2 a, Academia Română, Institutul de lingvistică
Iorgu Iordan, Editura Univers Enciclopedic, Bucureşti, 1998
3. http://www.europa-nu.nl/9353000/1/j9vvh6nf08temv0/vib8k91x0ujj
4. EUR-Lex:http://eurlex.europa.eu/Result.do?arg0=recomandare+adresat%C4%83&arg1=&arg2=&
titre=titreettexte&chlang=ro&RechType=RECH_mot&Submit=C%C4%83utare
5. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/parliament/public/staticDisplay.do?id=155&language=EN
6. Intersintitutional Style Guide, http://publications.europa.eu/code/en/en-000500.htm (English)/Ghid
stilistic interinstituţional, http://publications.europa.eu/code/ro/ro-000500.htm (Romanian);
http://www.dejure.md/library_upld/d27.pdf
7. Interinstitutional Style Guide: http://publications.europa.eu/code/en/en-000900.htm
8. Recueil de modèles (RdM), http://www.europarl.europa.eu/rdm/index.cfm?code=1401
9. Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament, Chapter 3, Rule 146: Languages -
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+RULES-
EP+20090714+RULE-146+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language=EN&navigationBar=YES
10. Rules on Drafting Documents, 3.4.1, http://publications.europa.eu/code/en/en-130400.htm
11. StyleGuide:http://ec.europa.eu/translation/language_aids/freelance/documents/romanian/romanian
_style_guide_ro.pdf

Problematica reglementărilor în traducerea documentelor emise

de comisiile Parlamentului European

Rezumat
Chestiunea preciziei în traducere implică multe aspecte. Redarea conţinutului în traducere este de obicei
percepută ca un element de maximă importanţă, dar în documentele oficiale forma este cel puţin la fel de
expresivă ca şi conţinutul.
Instituţiile europene au stabilit reglementări pentru a standardiza documentele de interes public. Astfel,
Parlamentul European, instituţia europeană însărcinată cu multilingvismul, are propriile unităţi de
traducere, dar recurge şi la traducători liber profesionişti, care trebuie să respecte cerinţele de calitate
ale acestei instituţii. Pentru a respecta standardele de traducere, traducătorii liber profesionişti trebuie
mai întâi să se familiarizeze cu aceste standarde şi apoi să le aplice. În acest context, lucrarea noastră
foloseşte documente redactate în limba engleză de către „Subcomisia pentru securitate şi apărare” şi
traducerea lor oficială în limba română pe de o parte şi, pe de altă parte, o traducere neoficială făcută
de un traducător liber profesionist care nu este obişnuit cu cerinţele şi specificaţiile de traducere ale
Parlamentului European. Lucrarea noastră îşi propune să arate care sunt problemele particulare pe care
un traducător le poate întâlni în procesul de traducere a documentelor oficiale emise de Parlamentul
European, insistând asupra chestiunii standardizării traducerilor pentru a oferi unitate şi consecvenţă
documentelor redactate în cele 23 de limbi oficiale ale Uniunii Europene.
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