Europese Unie heeft moeite met werving Maltese tolken (en)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Maltese politicians may not be able to use their native language during EU meetings because of a lack of Maltese interpreters it has emerged.

With less than three months to go to enlargement, the EU institutions are looking for short term solutions as they are faced with a lack of linguists able to translate and interpret into Maltese.

There are currently 11 official languages, this figure will rise to 20 after enlargement.

Maltese, a language spoken by 400,000 people, is one of these new official languages.

From the 16 candidates that applied for the EU's recruitment test for interpreters, only four made it through to the second round but these four then failed to pass the test.

Moreover, for the 135 translator posts, only 40 from the 90 candidates that applied turned up for the pre-selection tests. The 37 who passed the first round are now waiting for the results of the second tests.

"We are left with a deficit and we need to find a solution to it", a Commission spokesperson told the EUobserver.

'Acute' problem

The Commission provides interpretation services to the Council, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, raising the possibility that these other three institutions will be affected as well.

The European Parliament is also facing problems in recruiting qualified Maltese linguists as translators and interpreters.

The Parliament's Secretary General Julian Priestley told this news site that although MEPs are normally able to work in their own language in plenary sessions and committee meetings and have all official documents translated in their mother tongue, Maltese MEPs would "have to prioritise their needs" due to the lack of linguists.

He said there are similar problems with the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian languages but it "is not as acute as in Maltese".

The EU institutions are discussing the issue with the Maltese authorities.