1.

According to Rule 138 of the Parliament's Rules of Procedure, all Members have the right to speak in Parliament in the official language of their choice. Speeches delivered in one of the official languages are simultaneously interpreted into the other official languages. The same Rule also states that in committee and delegation meetings interpretation is provided from and into the official languages used and requested by the members of each committee or delegation. In practice, for all plenary sessions and a number of meetings of large political groups, interpretation is provided from and into all official EU languages (11 active and passive languages before enlargement, 19 after enlargement because of insufficient availability of Maltese interpreters). For parliamentary committee meetings, interpretation is provided for the languages of all committee members.

2.

As far as the use of languages is concerned, the Commission's Rules of Procedure (1) and their implementing rules (2) allow more flexibility. For meetings of the European Commission itself, there is interpretation in just three languages (English, French and German). For ‘Comitology Committees’ (3), the number of languages differs from one Committee to another, taking into account the requests of the national delegates. In most cases, these committee meetings are held with interpretation into between three and seven languages.

3.

Pursuant to Regulation No 1 and Article 14 of the Council's Rules of Procedure, full interpretation (11 active and passive languages before enlargement, 20 languages after enlargement) is provided for Ministers’ meetings. Coreper (the Committee of Permanent Representatives) meetings are held with only three active and passive languages (English, French and German). For the numerous other preparatory bodies (committees, groups, working parties), a particular language configuration is agreed at the time each body is set up. The language configurations for each body are listed by the General Secretariat of the Council in a specific nomenclature.

4.

When receiving meeting requests from the Council's Presidency, the Conference Unit of the General Secretariat of the Council automatically assigns a language configuration to each meeting request according to the nomenclature. All requests for meetings with interpretation are met by the DG Interpretation as long as the total number of meetings with interpretation and the number of interpreters per day do not exceed the ceilings set in a ‘Service Level Agreement’ (SLA), concluded between the Commission (the DG Interpretation) and the Council in December 2002 in order to formalise the main obligations of both parties.

1.

The full budgetary cost (cost before tax and pension) to the DG Interpretation, as calculated by the Court's auditors, is equal to the full cost used by the DG Interpretation to set the interinstitutional billing rates plus the overhead costs not included in the DG Interpretation calculations (cost of senior management and support staff involved in activities concerning budgetary and financial matters, human resources management and general administration).

2.

By deducting the Community tax paid by staff interpreters and ACIs from the ‘cost before tax and pension’ and by adding the fictitious employer's pension contributions for staff interpreters (which are equal to twice the contribution paid by the official) (1), the cost to the Community budget is obtained (cost after tax and pension). For ACIs the full budgetary cost already includes the pension contributions paid by both the ACI and the EU institutions to an external body.

V.

Within the Interpretation Directorate, the Meetings and Conferences Unit checks whether requests for meetings accord with the rules in force before agreeing to providing interpreting services.

VII.

The European Parliament stresses that, as a political institution, it must be capable of responding rapidly to political situations which by definition are in certain cases impossible to schedule. A code of conduct was adopted in 1999 and updated in 2004 in order to establish rules to provide a better framework for the provision of interpreting services.

VIII.

Session reports exist for meetings of committees and delegations; they will be extended to other types of meetings, including those of the political groups.

19.

Even if Members were required to confirm in advance that they would be attending a particular meeting, numerous difficulties would be encountered in attempting to respect the language profile of a meeting, including the obligation to cover language needs arising from the attendance of Ministers, Commissioners and invited experts at meetings.

20 and 21.

The interpreting services regularly check with user services the need for the resources requested; since September 2004, in order to ensure optimal use of resources, they have also been making use of the reports drawn up after committee and delegation meetings, and they will shortly also start to use those drawn up after political group meetings.

User services (committees and delegations) keep the language profiles of their meetings up to date in order to enable the Interpretation Directorate to make optimal use of resources. This information will be periodically forwarded to Parliament's Bureau so that it can, if appropriate, decide on any changes that may be necessary.

30.

The EP notes (Rule 139 of the Rules of Procedure) the fact that cover of the new official languages introduced at the time of the most recent enlargement is as yet incomplete, because of the lack of qualified personnel, whose training is a matter for the Member States.

31.

Although the competition organised by EPSO to recruit Maltese interpreters was unsuccessful, Maltese is covered at part-sessions in Strasbourg by recruiting freelance interpreters; in 2006 it will also be covered at part-sessions in Brussels thanks to the availability of Maltese interpreters from a training programme financed by the institutions.

33 and 34.

The EP's administration records the direct cost of interpreting services provided by freelance interpreters in accordance with the rules in force, and regularly updates the average cost of a day's interpretation provided by a freelance.

It undertakes to study and possibly adopt the method of calculation proposed by the Court in order to improve knowledge of the overall cost of the services provided, including those provided by staff interpreters, and to make available the necessary resources for management of these data.

38.

The difference observed between the costs of an interpretation day at the EP and DG Interpretation is explained well in the following point 39, where the Court indicates the specific constraints which characterise the EP's work.

39.

The excessive concentration of meetings in one part of the week or day (point 39(c)) is mainly attributable to the need for political groups to respect deadlines for tabling amendments before their written translation. The introduction of nine new languages has made it necessary to bring this deadline forward from the Thursday morning to the Wednesday evening before a part-session, the corollary of which is a concentration of meetings on Wednesday.

The interpretation services are aware of the need to improve the use of resources, and have therefore increased interinstitutional cooperation to mutually make permanent staff interpreters available, and hope to increase this practice, particularly during periods when there is little work at Parliament.

In 2004, the departments responsible for organising parliamentary committee and delegation meetings succeeded in increasing the number of meetings scheduled for Thursday afternoons.

Meetings are held at late hours at the EP (point 39(d)) as a result of decisions taken by the political bodies on the organisation of work; most are accounted for by meetings held during Strasbourg and Brussels part-sessions, certain meetings of the Committee on Budgets during the budget adoption period and certain meetings of conciliation committees. They represent a very small proportion of the total volume of work and are an integral part of the work pattern proper to the parliamentary institution of the 25 Member States.

42.

The high cost of providing interpretation services at short notice reflects the organisational flexibility required within the EP.

As indicated in the reply to point VII above, meetings may be requested at short notice as Parliament is called upon to respond to political events.

43.

The late cancellation of meetings to which interpreters have been assigned and the scope for perfecting the planning of work are cost factors which the administration regularly draws to the attention of users. It has been decided that their awareness should be fostered more by regularly informing them of the cost of these late cancellations. However, the figures quoted by the Court should be placed in perspective in order to avoid any misunderstanding. Many meetings consist of a series of sub-meetings held in the course of a single day (coordinators, chairman and vice-chairmen, working groups, etc.): the cancellation of one or more of these sub-meetings does not have any budgetary implications if the interpreters have worked during other sub-meetings. Moreover, the figures for cancellations of meetings also include ‘technical’ cancellations which do not have any impact on the interpretation budget because they merely entail rescheduling the same meeting which has already been requested while altering the timing, meeting room, place of work or languages requested.

44.

In managing interpretation, it is necessary to reconcile the budgetary approach, which focuses on payments to freelances (freelances are paid a fixed daily amount, even if they work only during one brief meeting), and the timetabling of Parliament's work, where half-day slots or even shorter periods apply. Consequently, the budgetary impact of interpretation costs is only limited, or even non-existent, when a ‘sub-meeting’ or working group meeting is cancelled but the interpreters concerned have worked during other meetings the same day (on average, it is possible for 70 % of interpreters who become available because of cancellation of a meeting to be reassigned to other meetings). This being so, Parliament estimates that the cost of interpretation services scheduled but not used in 2003 amounted to less than 5 % of all the interpreting resources mobilised (56 298 interpreter days), or just over half the percentage and cost mentioned by the Court.

55.

The EP welcomes the progress made in interinstitutional cooperation in the field of interpreting. This is not confined to the recommendations made in the ‘Chêne report’: in particular, it also includes ad hoc exchanges of permanent staff interpreters working in the old official languages.

Certain differences between the institutions as regards the working conditions of interpreters still hamper exchanges of staff interpreters. This subject is under consideration.

56.

Irrespective of the savings and gains in efficiency which might be possible, it should be noted that the existence of three interpretation services corresponds to the particular characters and specific needs of these institutions.

The calendars of work of the institutions could be harmonised more in order to improve the efficiency and availability of the interpreting service, particularly in the case of the enlargement languages.

57.

The concept of competition is not in any way applicable to pay, which is set at the same level for all the EU institutions by agreement with the profession.

The Secretaries-General of the institutions, being aware of the need to make better use of the human resources available (see point 57(b)), have very significantly stepped up interinstitutional cooperation and have initiated a programme of mutual provision of staff interpreters; they are determined to increase cooperation in this field.

Joint management of the list of freelance interpreters and greater consultation between scheduling departments is already making it possible to share travel expenses (point 57(c)) to an extent which could undoubtedly still be improved.

58.

The European Parliament's political and operational autonomy could not be reconciled with an organisational practice whereby the EP would have to submit its requests for official meetings for administrative arbitration, which would become unavoidable in connection with the management of the resources available, and in sum would make the holding of Parliament's meetings subject to such technical arbitration. Thus the European Parliament cannot endorse the idea of setting up a single agency responsible for providing interpretation services to all the institutions.

Incidentally, the conclusions of the ‘Chêne report’, formulated in 2002 for the Secretaries-General of the institutions after a detailed study, advocated increasing synergy rather than merging services.

Lastly, in economic terms, the setting-up of a single agency responsible for providing interpreting services to all the institutions would not reduce the additional costs arising from the organisation of the EP's meetings (costs of missions to Strasbourg, more missions, objective factors which the Court describes as being justified). Nor would it make it possible to reduce the shortage of qualified interpreters for certain languages.

62.

The European Parliament has always aimed for a 50/50 ratio between freelance interpreters (ACIs) and permanent staff interpreters; this ratio is of course favourable to ACIs at peak times, but in 2004 the ratio stabilised at 52 % permanent staff to 48 % ACIs.

63.

Particularly since the setting-up of a single department responsible for all payments to ACIs, the EP's administration has sought to verify more carefully the travel expenses incurred by ACIs.

The aim is to apply the lowest rates possible while complying with the rules in force and as far as possible bringing the payments into line with the criteria which apply to permanent staff interpreters.

The EP is willing to renegotiate the Agreement with the IACI.

64 and 65.

The type of plane ticket referred to in Article 10 of the rules implementing the Agreement currently in force (an exchangeable and reimbursable IATA ticket at the lowest rate that is not subject to quotas) does not correspond to a ticket ‘subject to restrictions’ [the phrase used in the French text of the Court of Auditors’ preliminary observations where the English version has ‘subject to quotas’ — translator's note].

If appropriate, however, Parliament's administration agrees to reimburse travel expenses on the basis of a reduced rate subject to restrictions, undertaking to reimburse interpreters for any penalty incurred for reasons arising from their work for Parliament.

The administration encourages ACIs to use this formula, and to systematically call upon the services of the travel agency contracted to the EP, which is instructed to apply the negotiated rates or the best available rates.

In certain cases and on certain lines (e.g. Brussels-Strasbourg during the EP's part-sessions), no exchangeable ticket is available at less than business class rate.

66.

In cooperation with the new single department responsible for paying ACIs which was set up in October 2004, the EP's administration has established a unit to monitor expenses arising from the commitments of ACIs.

67.

It is true that Parliament has always applied Article 9(2) of the Agreement with the profession, considering that its purpose was to ensure that the same scales were applicable, rather than the rules on payment of fractions of daily allowances.

The provisions of the new Staff Regulations currently distinguish between the daily subsistence allowance and the accommodation allowance. Renegotiation of the Agreement with the IACI would make it possible to clarify these provisions.

72.

The duration of interpretation sessions is set at three and a half hours for customary meetings. However, if the user service so requests, it can easily be increased to four hours or more, the teams of interpreters being enlarged for the purpose.

82.

The best practices observed at the other institutions will be studied by EP departments which use interpreting services with the aim of improving the planning of work while respecting the political imperatives referred to in the reply to point VII.

83 and 84.

The cover of needs for interpretation concerning the new official languages is progressing in step with the considerable efforts which the institutions are making to find new interpreters and to provide supplementary training. However, the new Member States have a prime role to play in training linguists.

85 and 86.

Full multilingualism, which the EP desires, entails substantial costs, which can be controlled better on the basis of the type of organisation of parliamentary work and optimal planning of meetings. These costs also arise from political decisions relating to the organisation of work (calendars and places of work).

87.

The EP's Interpretation Directorate pursues a minimalist policy on reserve interpretation teams. Only one reserve team per day is programmed, and that only on days of peak work; in the end, the reserve team is always used, either fully or in large part.

88.

See Parliament's reply to point 44.

90 and 91.

The EP's administration is currently in the process of applying the Agreement with the IACI more strictly, increasing the integration of IT systems and intensifying interinstitutional cooperation; it undertakes to continue these efforts.

The EP is open to the possibility of renegotiating the Agreement.

92.

The EP considers that it should have a body of staff interpreters to guarantee the EP's independence and autonomy in this respect.

Ad hoc use of freelance interpreters as needs dictate makes it possible to cope with peaks of work while keeping the budget under control.

A 50/50 ratio seems a reasonable compromise between autonomy and flexibility of the service.

93.

The duration of meetings is decided by the political and parliamentary bodies; it may exceed the duration laid down by agreement, namely three and a half hours, as mentioned at 72.

The interpreting service is required to comply with all requests which accord with the rules; to this end it assigns interpreters to meetings in accordance with the rules in force concerning working conditions.

94.

It is up to the EP's political authority to determine whether it wishes to have its own autonomous interpreting service, albeit involved in extensive interinstitutional cooperation, or whether it prefers to work towards the establishment of a single agency to provide interpreting services to all the institutions.

10 and 11.

Table 1 and following analyses in points 10 and 11 do not give a full explanation on the increase of interpreter days in the Council between 1998 and 2002 (+9 %). The main reason for this increase is the significant growth of the Council's activities and the number of meetings (+39 %) held within the Council during that period (see Table 1).

Table 1

The volume of interpreter days provided to the Council, including the languages of the new Member States, compared to the number of meetings (index 1998 = 100)

As for the decrease of –13 % in interpretation days in the Council in 2004, it should be noted that the number of meetings went down by –8 % in 2004. Moreover the following factors must be taken into account:

28.

It should be added that the Council's budget also finances 50 % of the Coreper meetings’ interpretation expenditure.

35.

The fact that the definition of the ‘MAD’ is not clear and has frequently changed over the years makes every analysis based on this concept highly questionable.

49.

It should be mentioned that even if the Council cancels a meeting for which interpretation has been booked and has to be paid, it does not mean that the interpreters would stay idle. According to the Council's experience, DG Interpretation can and has assigned some of these interpreters to other meetings held in the Commission or in other institutions serviced by DG Interpretation.

94.

The General Secretariat of the Council supports the idea of carrying out an independent evaluation on the possible benefits of creating one single interinstitutional office providing interpretation services to all EU institutions.

I.

DG Interpretation ensures multilingual communication, which is at the core of Community decision making. It ensures equal linguistic treatment of all Member States, giving each of them the possibility to use its official language(s) when addressing the institutions. It also sustains multilingualism in the Union, which has become a sensitive political matter. Matching real needs, high quality, availability and cost-effectiveness are the guiding principles followed by the Commission for the provision of interpretation.

II.

Whilst taking into account the principle of satisfying real needs in a cost-effective manner, the Commission is bound to ensure the availability of interpreters of the highest quality, whose services are required by the political nature of the activities of the European Union. DG Interpretation employs staff interpreters to guarantee the availability and continuity of interpretation services with the high quality needed by the institutions. When demand for interpretation exceeds what DG Interpretation can offer, freelance interpreters (AIC) of the same quality are hired.

V.

As a matter of principle the DG Interpretation of the Commission takes great care in examining the requests for interpretation and makes available to the other services information about the languages not used in any given meeting. It also coordinates with Commission services to provide only those languages that are needed, in so far as this can be foreseen.

VI.

The average figure of 1 046 euro per interpreter day is a global amount that includes expenses such as training to staff interpreters, support to national training institutions, in-house and external awareness raising and advice on defining policies on the technical aspects of multilingual communication.

VIII.

Session reports include details on the use of languages in any given meeting and they are produced in 82,5 % of the meetings serviced by DG Interpretation. DG Interpretation focuses on drawing the attention of Directorates-General, who repeatedly ask for languages that subsequently are not used, to the waste of resources that this involves.

6.

The Commission would point out that for a number of years it has been supplying direct to the countries exercising the presidency of the Council of the Union, at their request and at their expense, teams of interpreters for meetings organised by the presidency outside the framework agreed between the presidency and the Council. Over time these meetings have come to constitute a sizeable part of DG Interpretation's work.

8.

DG Interpretation employs staff interpreters (officials) to guarantee the availability and continuity of interpretation services with the high quality needed by the institutions it serves. Staff interpreters also play a vital role in areas like training and selection, not to mention quality control. Availability of staff interpreters also allows the assignment of stable teams to high level, politically sensitive or very specific technical meetings, this being a very important factor to ensure quality interpretation is delivered on these occasions.

10.

In May 2004 the Council of Ministers introduced an interpretation ‘on request’ system that has had a general effect of decreasing the amount of interpretation requested. This trend is confirmed for the four first months of 2005, as the total output equals that of the same period in 2004, whereas the number of languages into which and from which interpretation is requested rose from 11 to 20. However, inherent to this system is a higher risk of peaks and troughs which makes it difficult to ensure an optimised use of resources. Also, the implications of this system on the availability of interpretation must be closely monitored, as a stable minimum level of activity is needed to ensure that the necessary staffing levels and quality can be retained to meet demand during peak periods.

13.

In order to keep AIC travel costs as low as possible, six weeks’ advance planning of meetings is necessary, but this may result in a number of cancellations as this advance notice period is perceived as too long by many Delegations.

In case of cancellation of a meeting, interpreters are, to the extent possible, immediately re-allocated to other meetings. A new system based on the counting of interpretation sessions, which DG Interpretation is eager to implement, would take due account of cancellations and give a clearer view of the cost of both requests and cancellations.

15.

The Commission adopted procedures based on the principle of satisfying ‘real needs’ in 1984 and confirmed in 2002, making a distinction between political and technical meetings. DG Interpretation actively monitors language use in meetings by requiring the lead interpreter to fill in a session report and by systematically informing meeting organisers about the languages requested but not used, as an incentive towards a real needs policy. The non-use of a language depends on how a meeting evolves and on other parameters beyond the control of both the interpretation services and the meeting organisers. For requests from other institutions, DG Interpretation is not in a position to decide whether a language is necessary, nor can it anticipate which languages will actually be spoken or listened to.

23.

DG Interpretation makes its best efforts to provide the requested languages and has no power to influence language regimes decided for political reasons. Non-use of a language cannot be anticipated. Delegates may use a language other than their mother tongue due to unforeseen situations in the meeting, or simply decide not to speak at all whilst still listening to interpretation. However, in case a booth proves not to be necessary, the interpreter in charge contacts the Planning who will then remove that active language and re-allocate the interpreters where possible. The quote ‘1 750 interpreter days paid but not used’ does not take into account the re-assignment of interpreters nor that a Delegation may be listening to interpretation without taking the floor.

24.

The Commission has carefully examined the possibility of introducing an internal billing system for Commission DGs and has concluded that the administrative burden entailed would be disproportionate to any possible benefits. Institutions such as the Council of Europe and Unesco are different in scale from the Commission and the volume of interpretation and the number of their working languages, for which interpreters are not in short supply, represent only a fraction of the Commission's interpretation activity.

Through a weekly negotiation process, DG Interpretation takes into account a priority ranking drawn up by each DG as well as the total available resources within a broader timescale than the date for which the meeting is requested and proposes alternatives in order to strike a balance between political needs and optimum use of resources.

The ‘on request’ system adopted by the Council does not totally guarantee stability in demand and makes it less predictable. DG Interpretation provides in principle a fixed number of interpretation days to the Council.

DG Interpretation is currently testing, with its clients, a new system for calculating the provision of interpretation based on sessions, which is closer to reality, because it is linked to the actual resources used, and thus, should help to reduce the level of management risks. This new system, when applied, will make available to clients more accurate forecasts and data on their use of interpretation and the cost thereof.

26.

Member States are entitled to request and receive the interpretation they require and their delegations often consist of more than one person. Each delegate may have a different capacity of expressing himself or of understanding other languages and will thus use interpretation differently (e.g. some delegates may listen directly to English, but still prefer to speak their own language or speak English but listen to interpretation into their own language). For this reason it is difficult to say if a language can be considered not necessary because it was not spoken.

31.

The competitions for interpreters in connection with enlargement were advertised in early April 2003, 13 months before enlargement, and were completed between March and November 2004, depending on the language (the competition for Maltese was completed in December 2003, but without any successful candidates).

For some of these new languages, one of the main reasons for the inadequate number of successful candidates was the shortage of interpreters trained to the internationally recognised standards.

35.

The Commission is aware of some shortcomings of the BMA (mise à disposition, MAD) system used for billing its client institutions, bodies and agencies. For this reason it has prepared a new system to measure the amount of interpretation provided through the concept of ‘interpretation sessions’. This new system is much closer to reality and the Commission is ready to introduce billing based on it. This includes features allowing the institutions to forecast more accurately the cost of a meeting as soon as it is requested. This concept was already presented to the Council, the EESC and the CoR in 2004 and simulations are being run in parallel with the existing BMA system, with a view to formally run the new sessions-based system in 2006.

37 and 38.

The figure of 1 046 euros per average interpreter day calculated for DG Interpretation is a global amount that includes expenses such as training and support to educational schemes, in-house and external awareness raising and advice on the technical aspects of multilingual communication. DG Interpretation aims at providing interpretation as requested in order to facilitate the decision making process within the European institutions.

40.

In 2003, many staff interpreters were involved in the preparations for enlargement: they were attending training for the new languages, providing assistance to various training programs in universities in the accession countries and sitting on competition juries or freelance tests. In addition two extraordinary summits in preparation of enlargement led to the cancellation of all other meetings in the Council during the periods concerned. Two strike days in 2003 accounted for about 1 % of the drop in the occupation level of staff interpreters.

45.

Due to the political nature of the activity of the institutions, and to the fact that the availability and continuity of the interpretation services must be guaranteed, DG Interpretation is obliged to maintain a limited quantity of reserve interpreters. It would be a false economy not to have a reserve, as the impossibility of replacing a missing interpreter and thus ensuring the necessary linguistic coverage with all the relays needed to make it work would mean the whole interpretation team could not function. Since the unavailability of one interpreter might mean the cancellation of a whole meeting, recourse to a reserve is to be considered as a reasonable risk management measure. Moreover, linked to the nature of interpretation itself, and in order to secure a high level of quality, DG Interpretation is bound by an Agreement on Working Conditions which limits the number of working ‘sessions’ an interpreter is allowed to work and provides for limited standby arrangements. Two more aspects also need to be taken into account when considering standby duty:

DG Interpretation already has an active policy of encouraging leave during decreased activity periods and also concentrates training at these times. The Commission will continue its endeavours to further reduce implicit standby duty costs. However, either for the reasons given above or because of late cancellations of meetings by other institutions, there is limited scope for real savings in this area.

46.

The Commission can retrieve information about cancellations and would be able to show the reallocation of interpreters but as this is an ongoing process such tracking would be time-consuming with any likely benefits being outweighed by the costs.

47.

The fact that there were nine working days on which at least 100 permanent interpreters were on implicit stand-by is merely an illustration of changes to planned agenda at short notice corresponding to exceptional circumstances: the European Council Extraordinary Summits, which caused the cancellation of all other Council meetings and two days of strike. Contracts of AICs cannot be cancelled within 60 days of the start of the contract, but to limit costs, these contracts are converted to local contracts. Staff interpreters whose meetings are cancelled are put on stand-by.

48.

Interpretation services cannot determine the pace of meetings nor the content of agendas. Delegates meet when they think it is appropriate and the interpretation services provide interpretation as requested.

54.

55.

The Commission welcomes the progress interpretation services made in the area of interinstitutional cooperation. Achievements go further than the recommendations of the ‘Chêne report’, and include areas such as training and more recently, to a limited extent, the exchange of permanent resources.

56.

Real progress has been made in interinstitutional cooperation. The different services continue adapting to the possible extent the way they function, to bring progress in areas like the reciprocal use of permanent resources and by sharing the work in periods of intense activity. However, there is still ground to develop and consolidate the cooperation highlighted in the 2002 report by an interinstitutional working group chaired by Mr Claude Chêne without calling to question the political autonomy of each institution.

57.

58.

The creation of a single interinstitutional service providing interpretation to all EU institutions would require a decision, between institutions, at political level. The Commission believes that deepening interinstitutional cooperation could bring economies of scale and savings without calling into question the autonomy of the institutions in matters of budget, staff and the capacity to adapt priorities to the political agenda. To launch an evaluation of the advantages of a single interpretation service compared to improvements in interinstitutional cooperation it would be necessary to have a clear signal from the other institutions of their willingness to pursue such a course rather than continue with progress on interinstitutional cooperation. Indeed, enormous efforts and significant resources have already led to merging the payment offices, to creating a common list of accredited freelances and holding joint competitions and accreditation tests. These efforts should be consolidated and strengthened and the results analysed: detailed analysis of benefits and savings is necessary before a decision on further developments is taken.

59.

Variations in the number of requests for interpretation makes the average ratio between staff interpreters and freelances hired for interpretation services varying from one year to another. In the run-up to enlargement, for example, the number of staff interpreters on interpreting assignments was reduced because a certain number were already present in the accession States to help prepare for enlargement. A further number of staff were sitting in the evaluation panel of accreditation tests for the new languages. For those languages, it must be remembered that interpretation services rely for the time being very significantly on accredited freelances, increasing the overall share of the latter since 1 May 2004.

60.

A change in ratios cannot take place overnight. However, planning is possible in the long term. The issue of language combinations prevents interpretation services from applying strict ratios, as interpreters vary in the number of languages they know, and very often, staff interpreters have a wider language combination than freelances. Staff interpreters are also needed to maintain quality control, continuity in meetings and confidentiality at politically sensitive meetings.

61.

A competition for Greek was organised in 2003 and a Portuguese one is foreseen in 2006. The share between local and non-local freelance has changed with the introduction of the ‘on request’ system by the Council. More local freelances are now employed as the non-locals have changed their professional domicile to Brussels, thereby allowing a large reduction of cost.

63.

Higher travel costs for AIC result from the obligation of the Commission to apply strictly the conditions of the Agreement and to respect the conditions by which it is bound to reimburse the cost of travel. AICs are encouraged to take the cheapest possible tickets through the issuing of information about travel prices, whilst staff interpreters can benefit from the corporate booking rates and restricted fares.

68.

DG Interpretation is bound to respect the terms of the Agreement and its modalities, which do not require an AIC to prove that he bought the cheapest ticket available. When the terms of the Agreement are respected, DG Interpretation has to pay the ticket. The commercial policy of the airline also has an impact on the cost of tickets.

70.

DG Interpretation does not have the flexibility of observing market conditions since it is bound by the terms of the Agreement. High standards in recruiting AICs are indeed applied and quality secured by respecting the Agreement on working conditions for interpreters. The quality of AICs is reported on frequently and all have passed an accreditation test to be on the interinstitutional freelance list. Language training is also available for them during low activity periods.

71.

The existing Agreement does not foresee the possibility of paying less in the case of cancelled meetings. However, the Commission pays less for its AICs than other international institutions.

73.

DG Interpretation is aware of the very high satisfaction rate with regard to the quality of the interpretation services it provides. It strives to maintain its reputation for quality through, for example, thematic training. Moreover, a study on better documentation is being carried out by an external company with a view to improving the provision of documentation to interpreters ahead of meetings. A final report on this subject is expected in 2005.

76.

There is a definite policy of keeping teams unchanged for assignments to difficult meetings, although unforeseen events or the availability of specific resources does not always make this possible.

A ‘volontariat’ scheme is in place (interpreters may express an interest for specific meetings) and attention is paid to maintaining stable teams.

78.

Interpretation is a highly specialised profession requiring a high level of concentration. In order to guarantee quality, specific working conditions are necessary. The limitations which exist, i.e. a maximum of 4 hours of work in the morning, a compulsory 90 minutes lunch break and the end of the normal workday at 18.30, are measures in place to ensure that the quality of interpretation is guaranteed over time. However, extensions to continue beyond 18.30 can be agreed by simple advance request by the meeting organisers.

81.

In order to secure the best quality/price ratio, a six weeks’ advance notice is considered by the Commission to be a reasonable timescale to allow for proper forecasting, good planning and management of resources. This may generate difficulties for other institutions, but DG Interpretation attempts to address any problems on a case by case basis. Late requests generate higher costs.

82.

The Commission acknowledges that its efforts to contain expenditure on interpretation over the past five years are recognised.

83.

Enlargement is a process which requires advance planning. Although DG Interpretation has made numerous awareness raising actions in all the new Member States well in advance and provided considerable assistance to set up and manage conference interpreting training courses, there remains a shortage of interpreters in particular for some of the new languages. However, the Commission cannot take over the prime responsibility of Member States to provide interpretation qualifications and guarantee the supply of a number of suitably qualified interpreters.

84.

The competitions for interpreters in connection with enlargement were advertised in early April 2003, 13 months before enlargement, and were completed between March and November 2004, depending on the language (the competition for Maltese was completed in December 2003, but without any successful candidates).

For some of these new languages, one of the main reasons for the inadequate number of successful candidates was the shortage of interpreters trained to the internationally recognised standards.

86.

The interpretation services provide quality interpretation as and when requested. They take action upon cancellation of meetings by the organisers by reallocating those interpreters that became free to other meetings. The Commission considers that a six weeks’ advance notice is a reasonable timescale to allow for proper forecasting, good planning and management of resources. This may sometimes generate difficulties for other institutions, but DG Interpretation addresses any problems on a case-by-case basis.

87.

A limited reserve of interpretation resources is on stand-by as a risk-management policy to avoid cancellation costs and to allow DG Interpretation to cope with the requirement for quality, availability and continuity to which the DG is bound. Regarding the political nature of the institutions it serves, being unable to respect these requirements would render redundant the mission of the DG.

88.

It would be possible for DG Interpretation to retrieve information about cancellations and show reallocation of interpreters but this being an ongoing process, it would be time-consuming to do this extensive tracking work. The cost in terms of extra staff would negate any derived benefits.

89.

It is acknowledged that the billing rate, although suitable for the purposes of interinstitutional billing, is lower than what would be required to take into account the full costs, because the agreed rate results from a negotiation between DG Interpretation and its institutional customers. Moreover, DG Interpretation could not withdraw the provision of interpretation because of a failure to agree on a billing rate.

90.

As regards the Commission, the Agreement with the IACI is strictly applied and no further savings can be achieved in the present conditions. The Commission believes further savings can only be achieved by renegotiating the Agreement. Further integration of computer systems and closer interinstitutional cooperation have been under way since 2002 and will continue amongst the highest priorities of the Commission in the area of conference interpretation.

91.

The Commission agrees that consideration should be given to renegotiate the Agreement with the IACI, with a view to applying similar travel arrangements to freelance interpreters as to permanent staff. However, concerning special contracts with travel agencies, air companies or hotels, DG Interpretation deems that it is not efficient to duplicate the approach already taken by the Personnel and Administration DG. The possibility to renegotiate the agreement could also provide further gains if consideration is taken to bringing the remuneration structure of AIC into line with the philosophy put in place for permanent staff by the Reform of the Administration as well as to the new reality of an enlarged Union. Renegotiating the IACI Agreement requires the agreement of all the EU institutions involved.

93.

Interpretation is a highly specialised profession requiring a high level of preparation and concentration. In order to guarantee a level of quality that satisfies the users, specific working conditions are necessary. The limitations which exist in the Agreement on working conditions ensure that the quality of interpretation is guaranteed over time. It should be recalled that extensions can be agreed by simple request from the meeting organisers; a change of teams or other arrangements are then made.

94.

The creation of a single interinstitutional service providing interpretation to all EU institutions would require a decision at political level. The Commission believes that deepening interinstitutional cooperation could bring economies of scale and savings without calling into question the autonomy of the institutions in matters of budget, staff and the capacity to adapt priorities to the political agenda. To launch an evaluation of the advantages of a single interpretation service compared to improvements in interinstitutional cooperation, it would be necessary to have a clear signal from the other institutions of their willingness to pursue such a course rather than continue with progress on interinstitutional cooperation. Indeed, enormous efforts and significant resources have already led to merging the payment offices, to creating a common list of accredited freelances and holding joint competitions and accreditation tests. These efforts should be consolidated and strengthened and the results analysed: detailed analysis of benefits and savings is necessary before a decision on further developments is taken.

95.

The Commission agrees to continue its efforts to give a positive answer to the challenge of multilingualism, whilst keeping interpretation costs under control. This could be achieved through the consolidation of interinstitutional cooperation, especially in terms of the use of permanent staff, and by exploring the possibilities to simplify and consolidate the terms of travel and remuneration of freelance interpreters, through a renegotiation of the Agreement with the IACI. Only after progress in these areas is consolidated and the institutions have a clearly defined political approach to their autonomy in interpretation matters, is it worth considering the launching of an independent study on the advantages of setting up a single interinstitutional office.