By Bruno Waterfield - 25th May 2004
A European Commission word police is to keep prolix documents “shorter and to the point” as EU translation services drown under a flood of paper, Brussels said on Wednesday.
The EU executive’s translation service is struggling to keep up with an enlarged Europe’s prodigious word output - official languages have increased from 11 to 20 after May 1.
With document inflation running at 5.3 per cent Brussels translators were asked to interpret 1.5 million pages in 2003 – falling behind by 60,000.
A commission spokesman warned colleagues that non-important documents may be for the shredder as EU executives are asked to limit proposals to 15 pages.
The new crackdown could see up to 375,000 pages of commission output cut – when asked how many of the 1.5m pages of text were important, the spokesman, replied “three fourths maybe”.
Officials are to institute a “demand management system [to] ensure that the standard length of documents is fully respected”.
“If current growth trends in demand continue, then we would need 3000-4000 translators by 2010 instead of the 2400 which work for us today,” notes a Brussels document.
“There is therefore a need for more rigour on the part of commission services with regards to the number and length of documents they produce. Today’s plan will include monitoring and arbitration mechanisms to control demand.”
But the commission has hit back at suggestions that the new initiative is an implicit criticism of prolix eurocrats.
“This is not a criticism of long or short documents, it is about encouraging people, including the press department, to be shorter and to the point,” said a spokesman.
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